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Theee-and-Twenty. 





JENNIE M. DRINKWATER. 


V 

I 




“How beautiful is youth, how bright it gleams, 
With its allusions, aspirations, dreams, 

Book of Beginnings, Story without End, 

Each maid a heroine, and each man a friend.” 

Longfellow. 



/3SV/ 


/ 


“ I find it hard 
To be a Christian, as I said.” 


Browning. 


“ The natural life, not less than the eternal, 
is the gift of God.” 


Drummond. 


BOSTOi^ : 

A. I. BE ABLE Y & CO., Publishers, 


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Copyright, 1895, 

By a. I. Bradley & Co. 




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CONTENTS 


Chapter Page 

I. A Country Eoad .... 5 

II. That Girl — Again ... 20 

III. Understanding .... 31 

ly. ‘‘ New AND Different ” . . 37 

y. Leah’s Turn 45 

yi. An Argument and the Walk 

Home 64 

yil. An Hour Up-stairs ... 76 

yill. The Difference .... 88 

IX. At Mrs. Brown’s .... 110 

X. His Holy Land .... 121 

XI. ‘‘ Our Own Fault” . . . 133 

XII. Another Standpoint . . . 156 

XIII. Up the Lane 176 

Xiy. ‘‘Behaving” 196 

Xy. An Unfinished Thought . . 213 

Xyi. “Something” 223 

xyil. An Old Diary and a New Diary, 235 


TEBEE-AND-TWENTY. 


4 


Chapter 


PAGE 

XVIII. 

A Secret and a Eevelation 

. 271 

XIX. 

The ‘‘Shut Door”. 

. 294 

XX. 

Sands of Gold 

. 298 

XXI. 

‘‘Instead” .... 

. 304 

XXII. 

A Flash-Light 

. 311 

XXIII. 

Sarah Field’s Standpoint . 

. 313 

XXIV. 

As Good as a Fairy Story . 

. 318 

XXV. 

Homesick 

. 333 

XXVI. 

Mary O’Kane .... 

. 338 

XXVII. 

A Cablegram and a Shadow 

. 341 

XXVIII. 

Woven Threads 

. 351 


THREE - AND -TWENTY. 



I. 

A COUNTRY ROAD. 

** Oh, for a man to arise in me. 

That the man that I am may cease to he.'' 

‘‘Standeth God within the shadow, 

Keeping watch above his own 

'' 0, WORLD, dear world that I love so, I have noth- 
ing to give you but my money ; I have no gifts to 
serve you with , I have neither brain nor brawn.'' 

The world, dear world, was at its best this late 
October afternoon. Gilbert Maze was at his best, 
also ; he was always at his best when he was humble. 

The golden October haze touched him to day- 
dreams, as no other thing in nature ever touched 
him. In hours like this, he gave to the world all he 
ever dreamed of giving : comfort to the sorrowful, 
health to the ailing, truth to the seeker, thought to 
the hungry brain, a way of helping to the worker, 

5 


6 


TBBEE-ANB-TWENTY. 


and the knowledge of the one true God, and Jesus 
Christ whom he has sent to all the world. 

But when the haze faded and the damp twilight 
fell, he had nothing to give, and almost no heart to 
give. 

But the golden haze had not faded yet, there was 
still glory among the maples and clouds of fleece in 
the blue of the sky ; he paused in his rapid walk (for 
even with his slight limp, he was light and quick 
of foot) to pluck a handful of the red berries of the 
wild rose, for the wild rose was as near his heart as 
anything he found by the wayside ; he loved roses 
like a girl or an artist, and one of his dreams was for 
acres of roses. He stopped again at a great overhang- 
ing gray rock, and stepping over a fallen rail, went 
around the back of a tiny house, whose weather- 
painted shingles seem as gray as the rock, that he 
might examine the moss, quartz and lichens upon 
the huge boulders, and count the exquisite gray 
tints in its ragged gray surface. 

Then between two blazing maples he found his 
way out, and went on, not aimlessly, but still not 
knowing whither the way would lead him. 

New England was an unexplored country to him ; 


A COUNTRY ROAD, 


7 


he had spent but a fortnight in Portland, and this 
was his first walk in the country. Some one who 
had known his mother in his mother’s young days 
was living there in a small house among her eccen- 
tricities ; he had promised his mother the last year 
of her life, that he would seek her out and find if 
she needed help of any sort. He had found her 
and learned that she needed nothing but a listener, 
some one to sympathize with her railroad loss and 
her only son’s general inefficiency. If he were noth- 
ing else in the world he was a listener, with no self 
to talk about ; so he stayed and listened, and paid 
excellent board to the sea-captain’s old widow. 
This walk would be something for the old lady to 
listen to, for Gilbert Maze was an enthusiast about 
everything that lived and breathed and grew. 

The day he was ten years old the family physician. 
Dr. Nash, said to the boy’s mother : '' What he knows 
he knows clearly; what he feels he feels vividly, 
what he wills, he wills energetically.” 

It was true to-day, it would be true as long as his 
heart beat ; but how to do that he knew, and felt, 
and willed, he did not yet see clearly. 

It was victory this October day, victory over him- 


8 


TUBEE-A NB-TWENTT. 


self, over the world and the devil, that that soul of 
his, imprisoned in an ailing body, could give thanks 
for his creation and murmur to himself as he forced 
his way into a thicket for a new wild flower : — 

‘ He made thee when he might have made 
A soul that would have loved him more.’^’ 

He thought he had dropped down into a solitude 
this Saturday afternoon, but, as he emerged from the 
thicket, he espied a small boy trudging toward him 
with a heavily laden bag slung over his shoulder. 

The boy stopped in the middle of the road, swung 
his bag of nuts to the ground to rest his shoulder, 
and flxed his bold gray eyes upon the stranger with 
rustic curiosity. 

“You are one of the folks that pick things,” he 
remarked, by the way of easy introduction to the 
stranger. 

“ So are you.'’ 

“ But mine are good to eat.” 

“ Mine are for something better. Is that a church 
farther on ? ” Gilbert Maze inquired, pointing to a 
white tower up the hill among the trees. 

“ Yes, thafs a church. But there’s factory there 
and lots of other places. The church is the place 
where they tell the truth about God.” 


A COUNTRY ROAD. 


9 


'' Then I think I’ll go there to-morrow.” 

Why, don’t you know itj ” 

“ Not much.” 

‘‘You must be a heathen, then.” 

“I am, pretty much of a one.’’ 

“ Are you an American ? ” with an increase of per- 
plexed interest. 

“Yes, a live New Yorker.” 

“ Then I don’t understand it.” 

“It is something of a mystery. What is your 
name ? ” 

“ Chase Eitchie,” replied the small boy, giving a 
twist to the mouth of the bag with his deft right hand. 

“ Oh, then I know you ; you are the grandson of 
the lady I am staying with on the edge of the town.” 

“ Then you are the poor rich young fellow father 
told us about,” retorted Chase Eitchie, lifting him- 
self with a laugh in his saucy eyes. 

“ That is an exact description ; none of my friends 
would fail to recognize it, and my enemies would 
rejoice in it.” 

“ But you are not very lame,” said the boy, with 
a scrutinizing gaze. 

“ That is not the worst of me.” 


10 


THBEE-ANB-TWENTY. 


“ And your back isn’t much crooked/’ stepping 
aside for a better view of the crooked back. 

The merest bit.” 

“ Then I don’t see what is the matter with you.” 

Sometimes, in my healthy moods I fail to see it 
myself.” 

“ Who went with grandmother to-day ? ” was the 
boy’s next question. 

The little girl next door.” 

“ Then next Saturday it is my turn,” groaned the 
small boy ; '' I ran away once, and mother wouldn’t 
let me have any supper that night. Have you had 
your turn ? ” 

"‘Yes, but I will take yours next Saturday. Tell 
your mother that. You may go after nuts.” 

You are awfully good,” said the boy gratefully ; 
'' I wish you would come to our house to supper.” 

Thank you.” 

You shall have my apple turnover.” 

“That is generous. Who lives at your house?” 

“Me and Leah and Little Brother are the chil- 
dren, now the baby is dead and buried. Leah cries 
about the baby. She doesn’t like things as well as 
I do. She likes people. I don’t like people. Do 


A COUNTRY ROAD. 


11 


yotc ? ” he asked with his frank, fearless eyes studying 
the face of grave amusement. '' But I guess you do.” 

Why does Leah like people ? ” 

‘‘Perhaps she would like you. She says she likes 
people best because you can take them to Heaven, 
and you can’t take things to Heaven, for they have 
all got to be burned up. I don’t think it is fair to 
burn all the things up, do you ? ” 

“I shall be glad to be rid of some things. I like 
you better than your bag of nuts.” 

“The nuts will be inside of me, then you’ll have 
to like both of us. Don’t you think I’ve got the 
best of this argument? Leah thinks she always 
gets the best.” 

“ You have decidedly the best of me, at any rate.” 

“ I wish you would come to our house,” repeated 
the boy with cordial invitation, “ father has to be 
amused because he can’t work, and I think you 
would help amuse him.” 

“ Where is your house ? ” 

The white house with the gable to the road, and the 
wood-house chock full and piled up because I did it. 
Will you go back with me? You just passed it.” 

“ Not to-night, thank you ; I want to see that vil- 
lage further on.” 


12 


THR EE-ANB-TWENTY, 


‘‘ Good-by, then,” said the boy politely, bending 
under the weight of the things '' in his bag. 

“ Good-by, young man ; don't let all your things 
get inside of you.” 

On his return two hours later, Gilbert Maze 
stopped in the moonlight at the gate of the white 
house with gable toward the road. 

The kitchen door was thrown wide open, a girl's 
figure with a shawl thrown over its head and a 
covered something in its hand was waiting on the 
door-stone. 

Why child, you have put newspaper over the but- 
ter,” exclaimed a woman's voice as a woman's figure 
approached the doorway. 

There was a silence, then a merry laugh, as the 
girl's voice expostulated: “But it is a religious 
newspaper, mother, a sheet of The HomemaJcer!* 
He laughed in sympathy with the girl, the Leah, 
whose face he had never seen, the girl who wrote a 
journal for her grandmother and sent it to her every 
Saturday for her Sunday’s reading. He knew from 
the journal (that he read aloud) that the writer was 
a girl of moods, and strong conscientiousness. 

He passed on, before Leah with her plate of but- 


A COUNTBY BOAD. 


13 


ter skipped down the path. A very humble home 
it was on this small New England farm, a hard- 
working mother, a father who had to be amused 
because he could not work, a little brother, a bold 
ten-year-old boy who knew how to be bad as well 
as good, and Leah, the girl with moods. 

As he walked on in the light of the rising moon 
he remembered himself, a boy of this boy’s age; 
his father had no need to be amused; his father, 
who lived the life of his only son, and walked and 
talked with him as companion and friend, till the 
boy was fifteen years old. 

One evening, in the study the two loved as well 
as they loved all out-doors, he read these words to 
his father: — 

“Every tree and shrub is a distaff for holding, 
and every twig a spindle for spinning the materials 
with which God invests it.” 

“ Then Nature is at work all the time,” said his 
father, “ and her materials are always ready. That 
is a beautiful way of putting it.” 

A year afterward he came across the words again ; 
they were beautiful words still; perhaps all the 
more beautiful because he had grown to a certain 


14 


THBEE-ANB-TWENTY. 


understanding of their meaning; they meant that 
Nature was at work all the time, doing God’s work 
with God’s materials. 

God’s materials were upon every tree and bush, 
in every rock and grain of sand, in every drop of 
water, in every breath of air. He was a thinking 
boy, and that summer in the country he lived out 
of doors among God’s work and God’s workmen, and 
kept his eyes open. 

When he went home for the winter’s study in the 
school-room he was ready to understand the often 
quoted sentence written by Agassiz: '‘A physical 
fact is as sacred as a moral principle. Our own 
nature demands from us this double allegiance.” 

I am a physical fact myself,” he put it to him- 
self ; anything outside of me is a physical fact, 
everything I can touch ; courage, truth, love, stead- 
fastness are moral principles; God made physical 
facts, and he made moral principles; he works 
his will with both ; my very self demands that I 
be true to both : his physical facts, his moral prin- 
ciples.” 

That evening he said to his father: ‘‘I wish I 
knew how Agassiz lived ; I wish I knew how he got 


A COUNTRY ROAD. 


15 


ready to discern things; I wish I knew how he 
learned that this earth was so wonderful/’ 

I can tell you something of his boyhood,” replied 
his father. “ He was born in the early years of this 
century, at the village of Motier, on the Lake of 
Morat. His father was a clergyman ; the parsonage 
was one of the picturesque parsonages of Switzerland 
overlooking the lake, and was sheltered by a hill 
which commanded a view over the whole Bernese 
Alps. There was a vineyard, an orchard, a vegeta- 
ble garden, and a spring whose water flowed fresh 
and pure into a great stone basin behind the house. 
This stone basin was the boy’s first aquarium ; he 
found the wonderful things of earth within reach of 
his small hand. God opened his eyes, and he saw. 
His love of nature showed itself almost from in- 
fancy ; besides his fishes, he had all sorts of pets : 
birds, field-mice, rabbits, guinea-pigs ; and he gave 
them all as fond and prompt care as a little girl 
gives her family of dolls. He and his brother 
became adroit young fishermen, being quite indepen- 
dent of hook, line, or net ; no shelter in the lake» 
no crevice under the stones was safe from them; 
even when they were bathing they learned a way 


16 


THREE-AND-TWENTT. 


of seizing the fish in open water. To answer 
questions awakened in his mind by the study of the 
habits of live pet animals became the work and 
enthusiasm of his life. His study of the fresh- 
water fish of Europe began with his first collection 
from the Lake of Morat. Just where God puts you 
first, my boy, is the place for you to begin. The 
boy Agassiz was very quick at all sorts of handicraft ; 
the work of the carpenter, the cobbler, and the 
tailor were as much a matter of instinct, and as well 
developed as the taste of the naturalist. In Swiss 
villages it was the custom for the tradespeople to 
go from house to house about their different work ; 
the shoemaker brought his materials two or three 
times a year to make shoes for the whole family, 
the tailor came to make garments, the cooper came 
before the vintage to repair old hogsheads or to make 
new ones, and little Agassiz kept his eyes open and 
his hands busy, and learned to make a pair of shoes 
for his sister’s doll, to cut and make garments like 
the tailor, and to make a miniature barrel that was 
watertight. In his later life he said he owed much 
of the strength and firmness of his hand to this 
childish training of hand and eye.” 


A COUNTRY ROAD, 


17 


'‘The hand is a physical fact/’ Gilbert said, looking 
at his small, well formed hand. 

" Be as loyal to it as to your moral nature,” encour- 
aged his father, for Gilbert did not love handicraft. 
He thought it was finer to love books. 

"At ten Agassiz was sent to the college for boys 
at Brienne ; his father had been his tutor, and he 
found himself in good standing in his class. His 
hand-work had cleared instead of hurting his brain- 
work. There he had nine hours of study, with fre- 
quent intervals for play and rest. His note-books 
form a great pile of manuscript ; they were written 
from ten to nineteen. The handwriting is small, 
but remarkably neat. His Greek, Latin, French 
and German exercises are written with hardly a blot 
or erasure. Handicraft again. The clear and orderly 
brain made clear and orderly finger-work. From 
the beginning to the end of his note-books there is 
a careful division of subjects under clearly marked 
headings, showing even then his tendency to orderly 
classification of facts and thought.” 

Gilbert mentally made a note of this ; he began 
to be ashamed of his note-books and exercise-books. 
If the fingers and brain of Agassiz worked together, 


18 


THBEE-ANB-TWENTY, 


he was ashamed of his untaught fingers. There was 
not much better classification in his note-books than 
in his collar and necktie drawer, where this morning 
he had found a pair of soiled stockings. That night 
he wrote in his note-book, writing the name he 
honored, Agassiz, opposite the date : “ My hand is a 
physical fact ; materials are everywhere, with cour- 
age and faithfulness and patience I promise to use 
God's materials." 

He remembered that long-forgotten promise as he 
loitered along the country road in the illumination 
of the full moon. What had he ever done with 
courage, faithfulness, and patience ? College days 
were over, nothing else was begun. What were 
God's materials to him? This boy with his gray 
questioning eyes and his bag of nuts, this boy, and 
the boy Agassiz, and himself, at ten in his father’s 
study — with his promise to use God’s materials — 
Agassiz’s life was telling its own story, but there 
was this boy and himself — and God’s materials. 

He dreamed his dreams in the golden light that 
changed to silver light as the moon grew higher. 

Gold and silver were God’s materials, those few 
paternal acres of his, and the bricks and mortar, 


A COUNTRY ROAD. 


19 


glass and iron with which was fashioned that row 
of houses on Maze Street — the tenants within 
those houses were better than God's matter, they 
were breathed into by his breath. 


20 


THREE-AND-’TWENTY, 


II. 


THAT GIRL — AGAIN. 

How much owest thou unto my lord? ” 

Thou owest unto me even thine own self besides.’* 

'"From whom is your letter, father?” inquired 
Leah. She would not have spoken ungrammatically 
for the world. 

It is from Horace Newman,” her father replied, 
tossing the letter across the table to her mother, 
and then losing himself and all responsibilities for 
the letter in yesterday’s paper. 

“Leah, you may decide,” her mother remarked, 
after her third careful reading of the brief letter. 

Eagerly the girl held out her hand for the crook- 
edly written sheet ; she was wishing for something 
new, and perhaps it had come. She was confident 
she had a talent for deciding perplexing questions ; 
the more delicate the distractions, the more her 
talent revelled. 


THAT GIRL — AGAIN. 


21 


It is about Laura,” her mother prepared her, as 
she seized the letter. 

“ Oh ! ” said Leah, disappointedly, he is urging 
you to take her for the winter again. Why, she is 
blind, and not strong, and hasn’t any friends. She 
would depend upon us for everything.” 

“ That’s it,” replied her mother, '' that is what 
you must see your way through. She is about 
your age; he says all she needs is companion- 
ship.” 

It was companionship, it was herself she must 
give. Leah loved herself. 

“ Mother,” she began, in the middle of her 
thoughts, “ how much is it right to love yourself ? 
For you know we have to, we can’t help it. I wish 
we were told just how much, then we should know 
when we came to the stopping place.” 

'' We are told.” 

'‘Are we ? Nobody ever told me.” 

" Perhaps you never asked before.” 

" No,” said Leah, impressed, " I never did. Will 
you tell me when it is right to stop ? ” 

"We have the Lord’s limit ; he fixed it for us.” 

"How queer that I never read it ! ” 


22 


THBEE-'A ND-TWENTY. 


‘'It is this: you may love yourself just as well as 
you love your neighbor. If you love yourself less, 
you have not lived up to your full privilege of lov- 
ing. Is that too high a standard for you ? ” 

Leah asked her question in most serious earnest, 
but she laughed ; she laughed a long, low ripple of 
great amusement. She might love herself as well 
as she loved this lonely, homeless, blind girl, who 
had few friends, and no father, mother, brother, or 
sister. Suddenly this girl had become her neighbor. 

Then the laugh came to a full stop. It was 
Christ’s own standard of loving. Yourself and your 
neighbors just alike. Not one more than the other. 
It would be enough if she loved Laura as well as 
herself! Enough if she loved herself as well as 
Laura. 

“ But, mother, I don’t know Laura.” 

“No, you only know what Christ says about 
her.” 

“A neighbor is somebody who lives near you, 
and Laura is a thousand miles away,” persisted 
Leah. 

“ I suppose a thousand miles seems a very little 
distance to Christ.” 


THAT GIRL — AGAIIT, 


23 


“ But it is a long way to me.” 

But if we look at people through his eyes and 
his standards, his distances become our distances. 
Love brings people together.” 

“How can a blind girl have companionship?’' 
demanded Leah. “ I think it is outrageous to 
think of such a thing ! ” 

“ Decide as you like,” said her father ; “ I suppose 
his family are tired of her. I don’t know where he 
picked her up ; he seems to think he can’t let her 
go out into the world and find a home for herself. 
We have room enough.” 

“Yes,” said Leah, “she may have two rooms, if 
that is all she needs. But a room isn’t companion- 
ship.” 

“ Weigh it well, daughter,” warned her father. 

“Weighing is delicate work,” said her mother, 
“the tiniest atom has its weight in the most sensi- 
tive scales.” 

Leah was too proud to ask advice. Could she 
not “ decide ” for herself ? She imagined the scales 
in the Lord’s hands (she loved to have everything 
in his hands), this making a neighbor of the lonely 
girl in one of the scales, and what in the other? 


24 


TEREE-AND-TWENTY. 


Her love of herself. Her love for Laura ; her love 
for herself. Christ was holding the scales; the 
tiniest atom had its full weight in his scales. 

“ Oh, dear ! ” she burst out, “ it’s hard.” 

How could she share everything ? How could 
she always he thinking of someone else ? She had 
always had a terror of blind people ; they seemed to 
belong away off — to another world. So she de- 
cided to have Laura not come. 

‘"Leah cannot bear interruptions y' Mr. Eitchie 
said to his wife, after he had written the letter to 
Horace Newman, stating in the kindest way that 
it would not be pleasant for his busy little daughter 
to have a blind girl for companion, and life has a 
great many. My life is one long interruption. I 
meant to be president of a college by this time.” 

''And, now, you are something greater,” she said, 
with the voice that went straight to his heart. 

" What ? ” he questioned, sharply. 

But his wife did not tell him. She thought he 
would learn on earth, or in heaven. 

The next day there came a summons from grand- 
mother: her son and his wife must come at once 
and spend the night, there was business to be talked 


over. 


THAT GIRL — AGAIN. 


25 


'' I suppose it would hardly do to go and leave the 
children alone all night,” said the father of the 
children, doubtfully. 

'' I don’t know why not,” replied the mother of 
the children, not at all doubtfully. 

“ Oh, yes, do go,” urged the oldest of the children, 
we will have fun and stories, and you will come 
home to-morrow.” 

But her heart was not as brave as her words. It 
never was. 

As soon as it was dark, lights would gleam in 
the windows of the house opposite, but that was 
up the rough road, three fields away ; on the corner 
a light from the two down-stairs windows would 
shine out into the yard ; in the village there would 
be lights and people ; but the small, old farm-house 
would be dreary, and lighting it up would make it 
drearier with nobody in it. Chase would come in 
tired, and fall asleep with his head on the table ; 
the clock would strike seven, eight, nine, ten — 
suppose she should not be sleepy ; suppose she 
should not be sleepy all night ? 

It’s queer being by ourselves,” remarked Chase 
at the silent supper table ; '' say, shall I go for 
somebody ? ” 


26 


THEEE-ANB-TWENTY, 


"Who?" 

" Mary Field.” 

" No.” 

How could she ask Mary Field to come ? At the 
last Girls’ Missionary Meeting she had said, in a 
whisper loud enough to be heard, that she would 
not serve as Secretary if Mary Field were elected 
President ; Mary heard it and refused the nomina- 
tion. That was two weeks ago; Mary had not 
spoken to her since ; she had even changed her 
seat so as not to sit beside her in Sunday-School. 

" Then Lucy Cummings ? ” Chase proposed, with 
an eagerness that was not promising for his own 
bravery. 

"No,” refused Leah, sharply. 

It was not so bad about Lucy, but she had been 
disagreeable to Lucy; she had refused to give her 
the recipe for nut-cake, and she would not lend her 
the new pattern for knitting. In her loneliness how 
could she ask a favor of either of them ? 

It was dreadfully hard to have your own dis- 
agreeableness come back on your own head. 

"You will not like it when it shuts down dark,” 
Chase went on teasingly ; " you always ask father 
if the doors are all fastened when you go to bed.” 


THAT GIRL — AGAIN. 


27 


I’ll fasten them early. Don’t you go out again. 
I’m not a bit lonesome. I have a new Harper's to 
read and buttonholes to make in Little Brother’s 
shirt-waist.” 

Are buttonholes company ? ” 

As much as I want.” 

The doors were fastened early, a fire kindled on 
the dining-room hearth “for company,” two large 
kerosene lamps lighted, the shades drawn down, and 
then the long evening began. 

The clock struck seven. 

Chase piled chips on the fire, teased Eover the 
dog, and pulled the tail of Snip the cat ; when his 
sister rebuked him, he said she wouldn’t talk to him, 
and something had to make a noise. 

“Why don’t you read ? ” she asked. 

“ I don’t want to read.” 

Leah made five buttonholes. The clock struck 
eight. Chase was asleep before the fire with his 
head on a hassock, and his arms under his head. 
Little Brother was asleep in his cot in Leah’s 
room. 

“I am glad he is asleep,” Leah remarked to one of 
the buttonholes, “ I wish I was asleep.” 


28 


THItEE-ANB-TWENTY. 


She made three buttonholes and read- a story in 
Harper's. The clock struck nine. 

Mary Field was bright and entertaining ; what good 
times they had together ; the night Mary’s father 
and mother were away, what fun they had, reading, 
and talking, and making molasses candy. If she 
should wake up Chase and ask him to go for her, 
she would come now and stay all night ; it was not 
too late ; she was so good-humored she would come. 
It would not be too hard to-night to acknowledge 
that she was mean that day at the Girls’ Missionary 
Meeting. 

But perhaps it would be easier to go for Lucy. 
She lived in the small house on the corner. She 
would tell her she would show her the knitting 
stitch, and she was sorry she was so silly about the 
nut cake. If you did not love your neighbor as 
yourself, it was rather hard on you when your time 
of need came. Perhaps God meant loving your 
neighbor to be a help to you in your time of need. 
But Chase was asleep, and — 

Straying to the book-case she opened a book ; 
it was queer, but she read something in the line of 
her own thoughts ; perhaps that was not so queer 


THAT GIRL — AGAIN, 


29 


as the fact that Confucius (how many hundred 
years ago ?) said something that was a comment 
on the command to love your neighbor as your- 
self : " So hindly hath God suited our duty to our 
interests that obedience to his will is happiness to 
ourselves^ She read it three times and then under- 
stood it. 

Still, even if she did understand, it was just as 
hard, and harder, to stay alone. 

The gate swung as if touched by a quick hand, a 
step, with a peculiar tread, touched the wide door- 
stone. 

" Oh, dear,’' was the frightened girl’s silent ejacu- 
lation. 

'‘The door is locked,” said Chase, sleepily and 
bravely from his hassock before the fire. 

"Open the door, children,” called the voice of 
grandmother’s stranger. " I came to stay with you 
to-night.” 

" Bully for you,” welcomed Chase, in school-boy- 
slang, stumbling to his feet. 

Leah hesitated, allowing Chase to open the door — 
it would be strange with Mr. Maze — and — she 
would have to get breakfast for him, she remem- 
bered with housewifely forecast. 


30 


TIIEEE-ANB-TWENTY, 


But Chase set her at ease by putting Mr. Maze 
in her father’s arm-chair and begging immediately 
for a sailor story — a pirate, John Paul Jones or 
something.” 

When Leah went up stairs she found Little 
Brother waiting for her with wide-awake, shining 
eyes. 

“ Leah,” lifting himself in his crib, do you think 
you can find Santa Claus and tell him he mustnH 
take dolls to the heathen children ? ” 

Why, Little Brother, when they love dolls so ? ” 

‘'But I’m afraid they’ll make idols of theml' he 
half sobbed. 

The wind blew hard in the night, but she did not 
once waken to remember that grandmother’s stranger 
was the household safeguard, instead of father and 
mother. Not long after this night Chase brought 
another letter from the post-office for his father. 

“ It is from Horace Newman,” he said. 

“ Not about that girl again f sighed Leah with im- 
patient remonstrance. 

“ About that girl again,” he said. “ She is dead ; 
she fell ; she was injured and died.” 

“ Oh, dearl' said Leah, bursting into tears. 


UNDER S TAN DING. 


31 


III. 

UNDERSTANDING. 

“If the fire is brought from the right place to the right 
place, we have a good beginning, and the main elements of 
a glorious ending.” 

“ I don’t believe God loves me,” sobbed seven-year- 
old Little Brother ; he never lets me beat.” 

Leah was playing logomachy with her little brother ; 
he had not learned to spell, and could make very 
few words: “Is L-O-V-E a word?” he asked, and 
then was ashamed because Leah laughed. 

Still he knew what he meant when he said that 
he did not believe God loved him. He thought, if 
God loved him he would always let him have his 
own way. To-day Leah did not believe that God 
loved her ; she wished there was some way of being 
sure ; as sure as she was that her father loved her. 

“ God does love you, I’m sure,” she comforted her 
little brother. “ Go and play with Chase, and we will 
try logomachy again to-morrow.” 


32 


THBEE^AND-TWENTY. 


She kissed Little Brother and he was comforted > 
but it would take something beside a kiss — some- 
thing more than a kiss, to comfort Leah, who was 
older and wiser than a thirteen-years-old girl is hap- 
piest in being. 

There v/as no one she might ask ; rather, to put it 
more truthfully, there was no one she wished to ask, 
how she might know surely that God loved her. If 
only she knew that, she would be the happiest girl 
in the world. She had heard people say in Sunday- 
school and in prayer-meeting: '‘I love God,'" and 
once an old man had said : I know I love God.’’ She 
sang when the others did, ''Jesus loves me.” She 
sang because she liked the music ; and she thought 
perhaps he did love all the other girls. 

" I think,” remarked Leah’s father to Leah’s mother, 
after the girl who was older and wiser then her 
father and mother desired her to be, had taken her 
bedroom candle and gone up stairs to her chamber, 
" that I must tell our daughter the story of Margaret 
Fuller.” 

"Why?” asked Mrs. Eitchie, lifting burden-bearing 
eyes from the mending of the trousers that had gone 
nutting that afternoon. 

" Because she loves study and admiration.” 


UNDERSTANDING. 


33 


''Her rightful inheritance,” was the reply, with 
the flicker of a smile. 

"Yes,” sighed the book-worm, shivering in his 
warm wrapper and cushioned chair, " and I am a 
failure, dependent on my old mother’s bounty and 
my wife’s devotion. I must warn this sweet chip 
of a hard old block.” 

" Leah will like the story,” said her mother doubt- 
fully ; " I never understand Leah.” 

" I do,” responded the father, " she is her father’s 
childhood all over again.” 

The next week there came a note of invitation to 
Leah from a friend of her mother’s, in town, asking 
the girl to come for a couple of days, because her pet 
Eobert was not well and needed a playmate. 

"She will not like to miss school,” demurred Mrs. 
Eitchie, giving the note to her husband. 

"She must miss school; it is good for her; I wish 
she did not know how to read.” 

A visit to Eobert was one of Leah’s chief pleasures ; 
he was a two-year-old baby with sunny curls, brown 
eyes that looked a world of mischief, and the sweetest 
way of loving you. He comforted Leah for the baby 
that was dead and buried. 


34 THIiEE-ANB-TWENTY. 

Perhaps this sweetest way of loving was his attrac- 
tion to Leah. In her undemonstrative home there 
flourished the practical way of loving that she had 
not grown up to appreciate, but this sweetest way 
was the way no one in the world but Eobert gave 
to her. Not even Little Brother: he did not like to 
be petted. 

The day with Eobert was as satisfying as ever ; 
she sang to him, told him stories, and heard him 
repeat over and over his verse,’' God is love, and 
took a long walk pushing his carriage, and at twilight 
put him to bed with his bottle. He liked to have 
the room dark when he went to sleep, so she drew 
the shades down and turned off the gas, waiting in 
the hall, sitting on the top stair until he should ask 
for his bedtime bottle to be refilled. The baby’s 
room was dark and still ; suddenly there was a rest- 
lessness and a voice, a low, confident voice, speaking 
in the dark: ''Leah, more bottle.” She ran to him; 
the little hands were lifting up the empty bottle in 
the still darkness: "More bottle,” he said again. 

" You precious darling, how did you know I was 
there ? ” she cried, giving the warm, sweet lips a 
rapturous kiss. 


UNDERSTANDING, 


35 


In her still darkness she was not sure God was. 

The next evening, when she was alone with her 
mother, she began abruptly : '' Mother, I don’t under- 
stand — ” 

''You seldom do,” smiled her mother, who was 
accustomed to Leah’s thoughtful moods. 

"I don’t understand why Mrs. Leavenworth loves 
me. I know she does. It’s in her eyes and voice. 
I am nothing to her.” 

"You are a great deal to her. She says no one 
loves Eobert as you do. Every time you do a loving 
thing to him it goes all through her. She and Eobert 
are one.” 

" I know that,” said Leah, " and I think I under- 
stand it. When Eobert hurt his finger in the door 
I cried as hard as he did. And I should be furious 
if any one hurt him. She could not eat nor sleep 
when he was so ill.” 

Leah stood quiet a moment, understanding how 
Eobert’s mother loved her for loving Eobert. She 
loved love better than she ever had in her life. 

In her bedtime reading that night she found 
something new ; it was this : " He that loveth me 
shall be loved of my Father.” 


36 


THBEE-AND-TWENTY. 


'' I think,” said Mrs. Eitchie that evening, again 
lifting her eyes from her sewing to the pale, bearded 
face opposite her in the armchair, that Leah doesn’t 
need Margaret Fuller’s story. She is learning life 
for herself. As long as she knows how to love she 
will never be ambitious for herself.” 

We’ll see, we’ll see,” nodded the shaggy head in 
the hearth corner. 

He watched his little daughter, and he saw. 

That winter Leah knew that she loved Christ; 
and then she began to feel and know and un- 
derstand that the father of Jesus Christ loved her. 


“ NEW AND DIFFERENT. 


37 


IV. 

“NEW AND DIFFERENT.” 

“ Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ? ” 

“ Take heed to your spirit.” 

Father, do you think you could teach me Latin ?” 
Leah asked one evening, after the boys had gone up 
to bed, and she was hanging, as usual, over her 
father’s armchair. 

Could I teach, or could you learn ? ” 

“Oh, I know you can teach. Do you think I can 
learn?” 

“Oh, I know you can learn anything,” he mim- 
icked. 

“ Leah, you study all the time,” interrupted her 
mother, in a fretted voice ; “ I really fear you will 
never care for housekeeping.” 

“ But I can do it without caring,” muttered Leah, 
with her arms clasping the back of her father’s chair, 
“ and I cannot learn Latin without caring. I want 
to talk — like Margaret Fuller.” 


38 


TEEEE-ANB--TWENTY, 


'' There, father, I told you,” warned the mother. 

''What do you know about Margaret Fuller,” her 
father inquired, as Leah dropped her arms and stood 
again at his side. 

" I know she drew people around her, and kept 
them listening and listening.” 

" Why do you wish to do that.’’ 

" Because I have something to say,” said the girl 
of thirteen, simply. 

" Sit down and take your knitting — Little Brother 
needs his stockings,” advised her mother to the girl 
who had something to say. 

In the table drawer Leah found the half-knitted, 
long stocking; she was a rapid knitter — she read 
many books that winter, with her knitting in her 
fast-moving fingers and the book on the table before 
her, kept open by a pair of shears. 

" Daughter, don’t get a book ; I will tell you some- 
thing about that talker of yours — Margaret Fuller 
— when father is not here to remind you that you 
are too ambitious and fond of study as an end, and 
not a means. Think about her, that she was the 
woman your father did not honor.” 

“ Oh, do tell me. I like your stories as well as 
book stories.” 


‘‘ NEW AND different: 


39 


Not till that evening did Leah know how well 
she loved biography ; after that story of Margaret 
Fuller, she read with hungry interest every dry and 
musty memoir she could find among the neighbors. 
When Mr. Maze asked her what kind of stories she 
liked best, she answered: ''Lives.'' 

Little Brother’s stocking grew fast that evening. 

“ Margaret Fuller was like you, daughter, in think- 
ing that girls were made for books, as well as books 
for girls. She was sure no one understood her 
talents and her tastes.” 

Leah had never thought whether or not she had 
‘‘ talents ” and tastes.” 

“ Her life was sad ; her death was sad ; although 
she is a famous woman, and you may find her story 
in two volumes (I think), some people think that 
her life was nothing. ' Without me ye can do 
nothing,’ Christ says : and her life was without him, 
so far as she herself believed. 

“ When she was five years old her happiest hours 
were spent in a little garden behind a comfortable? 
ugly house in Cambridgeport. Perhaps she began 
then and there to dream her dreams. In this garden 
she watched the sunset, and picked the roses, pinks. 


40 


thuee-anb-twenty. 


lilies, and violets, and kissed them, pressing them to 
her bosom, hoping she would one day become as 
beautiful. In the garden she had the helps to grow 
beautiful that childhood needs, but in the house there 
was nothing bright or pretty, not even a bird or 
a dog, nor any dolls or playthings ; in the house she 
read and studied books to please her father, books 
written for half-grown boys and not for little girls. 
At six years of age she was studying Latin and 
reading frightful stories in that language ; and at 
night as soon as the light was taken away her fright- 
ful stories became horrible, real things. One night 
when she was walking in her sleep and moaning, her 
father awakened her sharply and sent her back to 
bed, forgetting that the dream she told him about 
trees dripping blood and splashing on her feet had 
been suggested by her recitation in Virgil late that 
evening. 

“ She liked Sunday better than other days, because 
the children were better dressed, and the dinner was 
better ; on Sunday her father found time for family 
prayers. She always remembered the day on which 
she began to read Shakespeare; it was on Sunday, 
and she was eight years old. She used to go to church. 


NEW AND DIFFEBENT: 


41 


but she never listened to the sermons, she used to 
look about to find some man who might remind her 
of the ancient Eomans who loved their country well 
enough to die for it. 

Poor little thing, with her hard study, her excited 
imagination, and disappointment in having no one 
to understand that she was only a little girl after all, 
she became ill, and would not eat unless compelled 
to. She took long walks alone, and often lay in bed, 
or on the floor of her own chamber, saying she had a 
feeling of suffocation in her head. Then her father 
became frightened, and said she must play and study 
with girls of her own age ; she could not tell him that 
she had nothing in common with little girls, and felt 
herself so wise and far above them that she looked 
upon them with disdain. 

So she went to boarding-school ; the girls were at . 
first delighted with her odd, bright ways, but very 
soon they grew tired of her and thought her dis- 
agreeable. She could not understand girls, and girls 
could not understand her. By and by they began to 
feel sorry for her and to tell her their simple little 
secrets ; then she began to take her revenge for their 
unkindness, and repeated to each girl what the 


42 


THBEE-ANB-TWENTY. 


others had said, adding to it out of her lively 
imagination, until there were not two girls in the 
class who were friendly to each other. 

"‘By and by she felt powerfully how sinful she was ; 
horror for her deceit and falsehood threw her into 
convulsions ; as she lay in bed she exclaimed : ' How 
black, how stained, how sad ! Strange, strange that 
I did not see before the baseness and cruelty of false- 
hood.’ When she recovered she asked to have her 
classmates come about her bed, and told them she 
deserved to die, and asked them to forgive her. With 
love and tears they forgave her, clasping her in their 
arms. Perhaps no one told her about Him who loves 
the truth, who is the Truth. When she was thirteen 
she was so large and so advanced in her studies that 
she was believed to be twenty years old, and took 
her place in society as a full grown and well edu- 
cated lady. 

'‘When she was fifteen she wrote to a friend that 
she was learning Greek, and making acquaintance 
with metaphysics and French and Italian literature. 

" It would hurt me beyond measure to have you 
worship your own intellect, and trust in your own 
strength like poor Margaret Fuller. Her father died 


NEW AND different: 


43 


suddenly, and she was forced to labor for her own 
support. She was self-denying and generous toward 
her younger brothers and sisters (I think she had 
both), and refused a promised trip to Europe that 
she might stay at home and do something for her- 
self and thus not take the money from them. 

When she was a little girl she could not believe 
she was a child of her parents, but hoped she was 
a European princess confided to their care ; when she 
was twenty-eight she wrote to a friend: 'Without 
throne, sceptre, or guards, I am still a queen.’ She 
thought the Sabbath and church services were well 
enough for common people, and that the life of Jesus 
might satisfy narrow people, saying boldly: 'We 
want a life more complete and various than that of 
Christ.’ 

"So sad, so sad was her unbelief. She wrote, and 
taught, and talked, and dazzled people. In Italy 
she married Signor Ossoli; she made a patriot of 
him, and sent him off to fight while she took charge 
of a hospital. 

" In May, 1850, she sailed for home. The ship was 
wrecked on Eire Island beach. Margaret would not 
be separated from her husband and child, refusing 


44 


THBEE-ANB-TWENTT. 


the means of being saved, one at a time ; she stayed 
on the ship with them, and the three were drowned 
together.” 

Leah’s eyes could not see to take up the stitch 
she had dropped ; she held her work still until her 
vision was cleared. 

‘'Without me ye can do nothing,” repeated her 
father, in the murmuring voice in which he often 
talked to himself. 

“ But, father,” said Leah, at bedtime, again hang- 
ing about his chair, “ I do want to study Latin, but 
not that way.” 

“Then I think we will study it the other way,” 
he said, with a laugh, and a glance at his wife ; “ it 
will amuse me, mother. I wanted something new 
and different/' 


LEAH’S TURN. 


45 


V. 

LEAH’S TURN. 

Across the field of daily work 

Run the footprints leading — where? ” 

— William C. G annex. 

“ It’s your turn to go and comfort grandmother,” 
said Leah’s mother one morning in December. 

All the years Leah Eitchie had lived ^ lived on 
the earth,” she said of herself as a child), the word 
‘‘comfort” seemed a part of her very personality. 
She had not learned the truth concerning herself, 
for her mother would sooner have touched her with 
a firebrand than have told her that she was her 
“ comfort ” ; just as she had not learned the truth 
about her eyes of softest, darkest, velvet-brown, with 
a light shining through them that must have come 
from her angel, who was always beholding the face 
of her Father in Heaven. 

Leah’s mother fervently hoped no one would ever 


46 


TEHEE- AN B-TWENTY. 


speak to her about the beauty of her eyes ; indeed 
she had told the girl herself that she had rather 
ordinary eyes, but she must not mind that, as long as 
they were strong and she could see well with them. 

I don’t mind,” Leah sighed ; but how she did 
mind, and when Mr. Maze, grandmother’s friend, 
spoke of her to somebody as '' that girl with the 
eyes,” she shrank behind the other girls and wished 
strangers did not have to look at her. 

'' Is it my turn so soon ? ” she questioned in reply 
to her mother ; '' my turn comes very often.” 

Because grandmother likes you. And don’t for- 
get to say that you need Sunday shoes.” 

I will forget,” Leah exclaimed ; '' I will never ask 
her again. The last time she said I wore out my 
shoes very fast, and she used to run around barefoot 
when she was a little girl.” 

'' Not in winter time.” 

I wish I could earn shoes ; I wish I could earn 
everything. Grandmother’s money hurts me all 
over.” 

''That’s only her way. She forgets how much 
money it takes to bring up a family. And, then, 
she is saving money to send you to college.” 


LEAWS turn: 


47 


“ Oh, is she ? ” with a shining of the eyes that 
would have consoled grandmother for the money for 
more than one pair of Sunday shoes. 

‘‘ But do not speak of it. She told father.” 

“ I hope father didn’t ask her,” said the girl, 
proudly, I would rather earn it picking blue- 
berries.” 

‘'Hurry, child. It looks like snow,” called her 
father from the bed-room. 

“ But I am so tired of that ride. Thirty dreary, 
dreadful, doleful, grandmother miles. And I know 
I’ve been a hundred times. I wish she would take 
somebody who never had been in the cars.” 

“ And tire her to death ? ” asked Little Brother. 
“If you were not doing that, what would you be 
doing ? ” 

“ I would go to Mary Field’s tea-party,” muttered 
Leah, too low for her father’s ears. (She and Mary 
Field, she would have told you, had “ made up ages 
ago.”) 

“And what would grandmother do if she were 
not riding in the cars,” persisted Little Brother, 
who was never satisfied until told an alternative. 

“ Knit things, and scold Susan, and read old 
letters,” was Leah’s patient reply. 


48 


THREE-AND-TWEN TY, 


Almost all the girls had grandmothers, but none 
of them had a grandmother like her grandmother, so 
queer and so kind. 

One other queer thing (beside riding in her own 
cars), was that she would persist in knitting wool 
mittens and long, wool comforters for the heathen 
children of India ; her purpose was not changed, or 
her mind in the least influenced, when friends and 
neighbors repeatedly warned her that her labor was 
lost, and a returned missionary told her that children 
under five years old did not wear any clothing at 
all in southern India. 

I know my own business,” she always replied. 
And it was her own business ” when she sent a 
barrel of knitted wool things to the cold children in 
New York City. Almost queerer still was her 
Saturday afternoon ride ; years ago she had lent 
money to her younger son to put into a railroad, 
‘"to make a railroad,'’ she said; the son died, and 
the money was lost, or so lost that she received 
almost no return for it, and all the ''satisfaction” 
she had was to have a free ride upon the train as 
often as she felt inclined, and invite her friends, 
young and old, to the same pleasure excursion. 


LEAR'S TURN. 


49 


The penalty that the old lady must be amused 
during the ride had the effect of causing a polite 
and eager refusal after several of the '' rides/’ Her 
grandchildren were not allowed to refuse, and many 
of the village children looked forward to their in- 
vitation with delight ; but Leah had become very 
weary of ‘'grandmother’s Saturday afternoons.” 

She thought she hated the ride more than any- 
one else could, for riding backward always gave her 
a headache, and grandmother insisted that the back 
of the seat should be changed so that they might 
face each other (and grandmother would never ride 
backward herself) ; she was so tired of looking out 
of the car windows and saying the same old things 
about the same old places. She had forgotten how 
many thousands of miles of railroads there were in 
the United States, but she was confident that these 
thirty miles of railroad must be dreariest of all. 

“You gain a knowledge of the world,” grand- 
mother had remarked upon her last ride ; “ you have 
opportunity to see human nature in its traveling 
humor.” 

“My traveling humor is crossness,” she was 
tempted to say, but refrained. 


50 


TUBEE-ANB-TWENTY, 


Her traveling humor was very cross, as she took 
out of the stove oven her rubbers that her mother 
had warmed for her, and lifted the lid of the bas- 
ket to peep at the pound of butter stamped with a 
sheaf of wheat. 

The cars will be snowed in and then you will 
have an adventure,” suggested Chase. 

“Yes, whoever lives till to-morrow will see a 
storm,” said the weather-wise voice from the bed- 
room. 

“Then somebody will be out of a storm,” remarked 
Little Brother. 

“Grandmother is not as strong as she was last 
winter,” urged the pleasant voice in the bed-room. 
'‘I want her to have happy days while she lives.” 

“ Because she won’t after she dies ? ” questioned 
Little Brother’s innocent voice. 

“ And she has lost money lately, too,” the pleas- 
ant voice continued. 

“ Where did she lose it ? ” Little Brother inquired 
with solicitude. “ Had she a hole in her pocket ? ” 

“ She thinks her money pocket is full of holes,” 
sighed the bed-room voice. 

“ Is money lost out of the world ? ” asked Little 


LEAirS TUBN. 


51 


Brother, who usually exhausted the subject before 
he was satisfied to leave it. 

“ It can’t roll ofi*,” said Chase ; '' it can’t get on the 
edge.” 

“No,” said his mother, “it always stays in it.” 

“Then how can it be lost?” persisted Little 
Brother. 

“Because it is not in grandmother’s pocket, but 
in somebody’s else’s pocket,” explained Leah, “ and 
she wants it in her pocket.” 

“ Come, little girl,” hastened Leah’s mother, 
cheerily. 

So the little girl started off cheerily, looking back 
from the gate for the encouragement of her mother’s 
eyes at the window. 

A bit of wayside woods lured her on, for she 
loved the silence of the winter woods, and went 
softly after she found the footpath, that she might 
peer up into the maple and catch sight of two shin- 
ing eyes watching her with head downward and 
bushy tail flattened on the tree ; the little creature 
watched with a kindly interest in the human move- 
ments, unafraid of touch from such a light-footed 
thing. Then the note of the chickadee sounded 


52 


THEEE-ANB-TWENTY, 


from the weeds as the winter bird picked up his 
breakfast from among the seeds. 

There was nothing to be plucked and taken to 
grandmother but withered bits of golden-rod and 
thistle, and a branch of wild-rose berries ; but she 
loved everything that her only granddaughter 
brought to her, and Leah found a handful of winter 
gatherings and laid them in the top of her covered 
basket. 

Then she went out of the woods through a by-path 
and climbed the fence to the road. Before she 
reached her ''half-way rock,” warm and ruddy with 
her walk, she was ready to be sweet to grandmother 
and even to enjoy the thirty dreadful miles. 

Mary Field would have another tea-party for her 
New York cousin Mary Dare, and winter would 
soon keep grandmother at home. There was always 
something better awaiting Leah Eitchie's coming 
feet. 

In the field, just in front of the overhanging 
half-way rock, stood a one-story house, with shingles 
the color of the rock and as rough ; often at the win- 
dow she had caught a glimpse of a white, wrinkled 
face, head pressed down between the shoulders, and 


LEAWS TUBN. 


53 


what she could never forget, a back with a hump on 
it. The tenants of the gray house were strangers, 
and she dared not knock at the door and leave a 
jumble, or a bunch of geranium leaves, or one of her 
few story books. 

Mr. Maze, grandmother’s new friend, was not 
tall and straight ; he was round-shouldered, like her 
father ; he never gave her u shock, still she was very 
sorry that he was not tall and strong like the Field 
boys. She heard Mr. Maze say to her father that 
he would give ten thousand dollars if he could husk 
a hundred shocks of corn in a day like Stephen Field. 

With a fascinated and frightened glance at the 
windows of the gray house, she hurried past, and 
this was all the adventure she had until she reached 
grandmother’s house in the midst of a garden on the 
edge of the town. 

Old Mrs. Eitchie received her only granddaughter 
graciously ; she was tucked into a high-backed 
rocker, with innumerable small pillows, as serene 
as any grandmother Leah could imagine. 

“ So it was your turn,” she began, fixing kindest 
eyes upon the girl in the long brown cloak, with a 
basket in her hand. 


54 


THBEE-ANB-TWENTY, 


“Yes,” said Leah, smiling np into the furrowed 
face. 

“ Were you glad to come ? ” 

The kind eyes could not only look stern, but they 
could shoot fire ; and truthful, timid Leah was afraid 
to speak the whole truth. 

“ Yes — almost — after I started and got into the 
woods I was very glad. I found things for you and 
saw ever so many things I could not bring.” 

“ Still, you had to get as far as the woods before 
you could be glad ? ” 

“Yes — almost. I had to send Chase to Mary 
Field's house to say I was coming here.” 

“ And you would rather go there ? ” 

“Mary Field is my best friend — and her cousin 
is there from New York — she is years older — and 
she plays and sings.” 

“ H’m, I thought mothers and fathers and grand- 
mothers were best friends : they were when I was a 
little girl. And both those girls are too old to be 
your friends.” 

“ But that was a long time ago,” replied the little 
girl of the nineteenth century, ignoring the latter 
insinuation. 


LEAH\S TUBN. 


55 


“It certainly was,” said the old lips, puckering 
themselves into a smile. 

“ And you have had time to forget,” encouraged 
Leah, gathering boldness. 

“Forget what? ” with suspicious sharpness. 

Leah’s mother believed that her daughter had 
never learned to speak an untruth ; that she was 
born not knowing how, and it was something very 
hard for her to learn. 

“ Forget — how girls feel about things.” 

Leah’s tears were starting, for grandmother’s eyes 
were beginning to shoot fire. 

“ H’m. Girls don’t know how to feel ; all girls 
have to do is one thing ; the Lord himself says that ; 
he said it to Martha. Do you know what it is ? ” 

If it had not been in the Bible (grandmother 
knew all about the Bible), Leah would have haz- 
arded something in grandmother’s line : cooking, or 
knitting, or being sharp with somebody about house- 
keeping, but the Bible would not mean such things 
as that. 

“ Obey,” said grandmother. 

Leah knew about Martha and Mary, and was very 
sure the word “ obey ” was not in the story ; but it 


56 


THREE- A ND-TWENTY. 


would never do to contradict grandmother, especially 
about something in the Bible. 

“ I know how to do that,” she answered, thinking 
it was the trying thing she was doing this very 
day. 

‘'I am sorry I cannot give you a ride to-day. 
Now don’t turn red and look a;ngry ; girls should 
learn to bear disappointments.” 

'' That’s another thing they must do, then,” Leah 
said, with a relieved laugh. But wouldn’t it do 
you good ? Mother says it makes her feel better to 
go somewhere.” 

I don’t feel able to stay at home, and so I’m 
sure I don’t feel able to go away from home.” 

'' Have you a bad pain ? ” asked Leah, sympa- 
thetically. 

“I always have a bad pain; but I’ve had it so 
long I shouldn’t know what to do without it. We 
are old friends, the pain and I. Your father got 
his weak constitution from me. That’s why I 
think he will live to be a hundred, as I hope to. 
He was a sick old bachelor when he married that 
pretty girl, your mother ; and I never understood 
what she did it for.” 


LEAWS TUBN. 


57 


“ She loves him,” said Leah, coloring with anger. 

“Well, well, no matter; you shall knit for me and 
help Susan get dinner, for Mr. Gilbert Maze is 
mightily particular about his dinner, and we have 
to 'have meat every day ; and you may comb my 
hair ” — Leah shivered ; combing grandmother’s hair 
was even worse than riding in her cars; it made 
her so cross if you pulled, and it was always in a 
tangle — “ and read over another box of old letters 
Susan has got out of the attic. I live in my past ; 
my old letters are my literature. These are your 
grandfather’s letters that he wrote on his voyages 
around the world. They are as interesting as a 
book.” They were not as interesting to Leah as a 
book; the spelling was often incorrect, and the 
handwriting sometimes difificult to read, as if grand- 
father had .been in league with grandmother to 
make obedience hard to their only granddaughter. 

“ Now get your things off, and show me what you 
have in your basket, and then you shall hold yarn ; 
I have ten new skeins,” said grandmother cheer- 
fully. 

Leah thought she would need ten new arms be- 
fore night, but she was never saucy to grandmother. 


58 


THBEE-ANB-TWENTY, 


She knew how to be saucy, but no one had yet 
discovered it. 

“ When you were a very little girl,” said grand- 
mother, as the big girl’s tired and impatient arms 
were stretched wide apart and held still for the 
seventh slowly wound skein, “ I asked you what you 
liked best of all, and what do you think you said ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” Leah replied, without interest. 

“ You said : ' To know things,' ” laughed the old 
lady. 

Leah did not smile ; it was what she liked best of 
all to-day. 

At the round dinner-table in the dining-room, Leah 
sat alone with Gilbert Maze, the stranger with whom 
she still felt shy. 

‘‘ Somebody should stay with grandmother to- 
night,” he remarked, breaking the silence, after he 
had filled Leah’s plate with a delicious bit of steak, 
a boiled potato, and mashed turnip. 

'' Isn’t she well ? ” asked Leah, lifting her eyes for 
the first time to Gilbert’s face. 

'' No ; far from it.” 

‘'But she wanted something of everything we had 
for dinner.” 


LEAWS TV BN, 


59 


*'And will feel all the worse after it. Ask your 
mother to come to-night. Can you take care of your 
father and brothers and be housekeeper for a while ? ” 
Oh, yes, indeed ; I did that for a month last 
winter when grandmother was sick in bed. Shall 
I go home now and send mother?” she inquired, 
startled, rising from her chair. 

''No, sit still. Do behave yourself. I thought 
you were more of a woman. She must be kept 
quiet and not frightened. Only make an excuse to 
go home earlier than you expected.” 

" I do not know how.’’ 

"Then I will say that you must go to escape the 
storm.” 

“But it does not &torm.” 

" It will storm before to-morrow morning.” 

" Then I need not go earlier to escape it ; I always 
go before dark. You cannot deceive grandmother.” 

“ I was not seeking to deceive her.” 

“ But you were making an excuse ; it does not 
exist, so you had to make it,” argued Leah, forget- 
ting her shyness in the delight of the argument. 

"It is ojie of the occasions when something to 
suit an emergency has to be manufactured.” 


60 


THUEE-ANB-^TWENTY. 


*'But cannot you find a reason instead?” Leah 
persisted, I like a reason better than an excuse ; 
an excuse sounds as if something were wrong.” 

Something is wrong, and would be more wrong 
if your grandmother understood the truth.” 

'' Isn’t the truth always good for us ? ” 

Hardly,” he laughed. 

Then why does God make it ? ” she questioned 
with troubled eyes. 

‘‘ The truth is good in itself ; we do not know how 
to use it,” he evaded. 

But God makes it for us to use.” 

But we have not the tact.” 

I know I haven’t any tact. I like truth better. 
Do we have to tell grandmother a lie ? ” 

I did not propose to tell grandmother a lie,” he 
answered, only not to tell her the startling truth- 
Simply to withhold something that would hurt her.” 

Yes,” said Leah, brightening. 

You can see how that must sometimes be.” 

But we should withhold it in a true way, not by 
a lie. I know about withholding ; I have to with- 
hold things from Little Brother ; but I tell him the 
truth and let him scream.” 


LEAWS TV BN. 


61 


But suppose it should hurt him to scream.” 

It hasn’t yet,” said Leah, smiling at the remem- 
brance of some of his screaming and kicking times. 
But it may hurt your grandmother.” 

Then the question is whether it is better to hurt 
grandmother or tell a lie.” 

“ Which do you think better ? ” 

I should not try the lie — first.” 

"I think we can get along without trying the lie 
at all. The storm will help us out.” 

'' But suppose it hadn't ? ” 

‘‘ I never suppose it hadn’t. It always does for me. 
Leah, you are forgetting your dinner just like your 
father.” 

Leah laughed, and forever after forgot to be shy 
with grandmother’s stranger. 

‘‘Your religious piece of paper over your butter 
was an excuse,” he said, after confessing that he was 
an eavesdropper that night in the moonlight. 

“Oh, that was fun. I remember that moonlight; 
I almost forgot my errand.” 

“You must go to Egypt some day ; the moonlight 
there is said to be more wonderful than in other 
countries.” 


62 


TIIREE-ANB- TWENTY. 


“I would rather go to ancient Egypt. Father 
and I study ancient geography with our ancient 
history.” 

‘‘There's enough of ancient Egypt left for your 
enthusiasm.” 

“ But I couldn’t see the gardens of Memphis.” 

“ What of them ? ” 

“They sent roses to Eome even in winter. I 
never have roses in winter. But there’s grand- 
mother’s cane knocking for me. I’ll go home as 
early as I can.” 

“ You have had no pie.” 

“ITl take it with me.” 

Like the country girl she was, Leah hurried up- 
stairs with a huge piece of apple pie in her hand. 

Grandmother’s stranger followed her with dis- 
approving eyes ; then he laughed, as he placed his 
own piece of pie on a dainty china plate and tasted 
it with a silver fork. He had given his mother’s old 
friend a dozen silver forks, after extorting the prom- 
ise that she would allow them to he used every day. 

“ I wonder what that girl will make,” he medi- 
tated ; “ she’ll make life uneasy for somebody. I’ll 
warrant.” 


LEAWS TURN. 


63 


All the afternoon Leah sat on the carpet before 
grandmother’s chair, with packages of neatly tied 
letters in her lap. 

They were written on sheets of large size, folded 
into envelope fashion, and addressed on the blank 
fourth page, left for the purpose, sealed with blotches 
of red wax and postmarked from all over the world. 

The sea journals were interesting, because Leah 
loved the sea ; she said the old letters smelt of salt 
and tar. 

Sometimes, as grandmother listened, the tears 
rolled down her cheeks, and then Leah loved grand- 
mother and forgot that her eyes ever shot fire. 


64 


THItEE-ANI)--TWENTY. 


VI. 

AN ARGUMENT AND THE WALK HOME. 

“God’s work, be sure, 

No more spreads wasted, than falls scant.” 

— Beowning. 

“ Our hearts create the atmosphere they dwell in.” 

— E. N. Packaed. 

Mrs. Eitchie, this little girl should be on her 
long way home. Look at the sky from your win- 
dow.’' 

“ It is not very dark ; she can see to read a while 
longer. Or she can stay all night.” 

'' But mother expects me,” said Leah ; '' it is my 
turn to stay home to-morrow with father and let 
her go to church ; but I haven’t anything to read — 
we do need Sunday-school books so. I’ve read them 
all dozens of times.” 

Your father expects too much ; tell him so for 
me. His old mother is as much account in this 


AN ARGUMENT AND THE WALK HOME. 65 


world as he is. But if he expects you, I suppose 
you’ll have to go,” she grumbled, grudgingly. 

Leah began to replace the letters doubtfully into 
the large wooden box. 

“I think I shall have to take her home, Mrs. 
Eitchie, these snow storms often come up with 
sudden fury.” 

‘‘ I would rather go alone,” said the girl on the 
carpet, busy among the letters, too busy to note the 
frown and flush upon the young man’s face. 

Then hurry and go alone,” he answered, sharply ; 

I will take care of those letters.” 

You are a careless child to stay so late,” whim- 
pered grandmother, worried by his tone ; '' run all 
the way and never stay so late again. Tell your 
father I never felt better in all my life.” 

'' Oh, do you ? I’m so glad,” with a shy look up 
at the young man hovering over the cylinder stove, 
with a large volume under his arm and a small one 
in his hand. 

“ Are those your best shoes ? ” was grandmother’s 
unexpected question, as Leah unguardedly allowed 
her shoe to show itself under the hem of her dress. 

'' Yes,” was the low, ashamed answer, with a quick 


66 


THREE- AN D-TWENTY. 


glance at the young man, who had suddenly become 
lost in one of his books. 

'' Did you get your feet wet to-day ? 

'' I wore my rubbers,” she replied, feeling that her 
feet were never before so large and hard to keep 
hidden. 

Why didn’t you tell me ? Am I such an ogre ? 
Did you think I was too poor to give you a pair of 
shoes ? ” 

"'Oh, no,” said Leah with a bright upward look 
into the loving and indignant eyes. You own our 
farm, and your house, and the railroad.” 

“And you. Don’t forget that,” with a pat upon 
the brown head. 

Leah looked up at her grandmother with the eyes 
no one had told her about. To the old woman they 
were the eyes of her husband who had kissed her 
one day and gone to sea never to come back. 

“ Gilbert Maze, what are you going to do with all 
your money ? ” was the old woman’s next sharp ques- 
tion, settling down more comfortably into her small 
pillows. 

“I don’t know,” he answered with the impulse 
that always moved him to show the worst side of 


AN ARGUMENT AND THE WALK HOME. 67 


himself. “I never know what I am going to do 
next.’' 

All you care for is to wander about, and eat and 
drink, and devour books, and keep warm.” 

''Which I cannot do in these Maine winters of 
yours ; I am going south before next Saturday night. 
Every bird has a climate of its own, and I am going 
after mine.” 

"Who is your greatest man?” inquired Mrs. 
Eitchie, following out some thought in her own mind. 

Leah paused in tying up a bundle of letters to 
listen. Her greatest man just now was Dr. Kane, 
of the Arctic Expedition. 

"John Wesley,” was the answer unexpected to 
his questioner, who had decided in her own mind 
that he would say Shakespeare or John Jacob As tor. 
"He made more than a thousand pounds by his writ- 
ings, and he declared in print that if he left ten 
pounds above his debts and his books, he was wil- 
ling that all mankind should bear witness against 
him that he lived a thief and a robber.” 

" H’m,” ejaculated grandmother, who hugged her 
small bank account with the miserliness of old age 
and the helplessness of not being able to add to her 


68 


TIIBEE-AND-TWENTY. 


treasure. ''You are forever harping on giving/’ 
cried the shrill voice; "can you find in the Bible 
where Christ ever gave away money ? ” 

"And it would have been so much better if he 
had,” retorted the young man with the scorn of 
money in his tone ; " if he had only given money to 
the five thousand instead of bread, and gold to 
Bartimeus instead of sight, and a check for five thou- 
sand to the mother instead of her only son raised to 
life.” 

"But you forget,” continued the old lady, with 
the gracious dignity with which she prided herself 
upon carrying on her arguments, "that it was to 
the young ruler, and to no one else, and to him 
especially that the Lord said, sell all and give it 
away ; what right have you to take that to yourself 
any more than the command to Abram to leave his 
country and go he knew not whither ? ” 

" I expect to do that myself,” replied the young 
man, humorously, " but of my own sweet, wandering 
will. You forget Christ said distinctly to his dis- 
ciples, I don’t know whether before or after his 
interview with the rich young man, — this he said to 
his disciples as his disciples, to any and all who 


AN ABGUMENT AND THE WALK HOME. 69 


believed in him, and to me, if I am truly his dis- 
ciple as Peter was, and Philip, which you know I 
am not — ” 

Then what right have you to say anything about 
it ? ’’ demanded grandmother, while Leah listened, 
forgetting the long way and the fast-coming dark- 
ness. 

Perhaps I haven’t, only I like to talk, you 
know. I believe I have my own small share of 
common sense, and the natural-born right to read 
the New Testament as well as other literature. 
— To these disciples he said: 'Sell that ye have 
(not much perhaps), and give alms.’ ” 

" But they didn’t do it,” was the quick reply. 

“How do you know they did not?” 

“How do you know they did?’' she asked in self- 
complacent triumph, 

Leah’s cheeks flushed, and words trembled on her 
parted lips. She could not think it possible that 
the disciples did not obey Christ. 

“Peter and John told the man at the Gate of the 
Temple that they had no money — and once Peter 
had not enough to pay his tax. The Lord him- 
self had not either, but no one thinks of him as 


70 


TIIUEE-ANB-TWENTT. 


having money. It was rather strange that the 
fisherman Peter had not that small sum.” 

“But he got it,” interposed the listener down 
among the old letters. 

“What would happen to us all if we took such 
commands with strict literalness ? ” demanded the 
old lady with a bank account. 

“We shall never know, because it will never hap- 
pen,” was the retort, still humorously. “ I am not 
proposing to do it myself any more than you are. 

But you like to take the promise of forgiveness and r 
the certainty of Heaven with ‘strict literalness’ I 
notice.” 

“But the other would be works'' insisted grand- 
mother, holding tight to her money and her argu- 
ment. 

“ And it’s easier to get into Heaven on clear faith, 

I see that.” 

Leah was puzzled ; did Mr. Maze believe Christ’s 
words or did he not believe them ? Was grand- 
mother right or wrong? If grandmother sold all 
she had and gave alms, what would they all do at 
home for money and clothes ? 

But, perhaps, it meant that grandmother was 


AN ARGUMENT AND THE WALK HOME. 71 


not to keep her money all herself, but give it to 
them ? They needed it, her sick father, and mother, 
and Chase, and Little Brother, who wanted boots as 
badly as she wanted shoes. 

If that was what Christ meant, she understood. 

“ The child understands,” said grandmother as 
Leah looked brightly up into her face. 

“But I have nothing to sell, or give,” she said. 
She never had any money of her own ; even when 
she earned a dollar one week by helping Mrs. Field 
in the kitchen, she brought it home to her mother to 
buy a table-cloth ; there was not even a cent left for 
Missionary Sunday. 

“ You can talk” said Mrs. Eitchie dryly. “ Come, 
my little chickadee, hurry home.’’ 

While Leah was tying the strings of her brown 
velveteen hood, grandmother’s maid brought to the 
door a bunch of scarlet geranium blossoms with 
their green leaves. 

“Mrs. Leavenworth sent them.” she said. 

“They didn’t grow with a string on them,” re- 
marked grandmother, who loved nature in its natu- 
ral state ; “ put them in a tumbler, Susan.” 

“They didn’t grow in a tumbler either,” was 


72 


TUB EE- A N D- T WEN T Y. 


Leah’s retort, with reddened cheeks for the slight to 
Eobert’s mother. 

'' It’s a transplanting of nature,” said Mrs. Eitchie, 
amused instead of provoked, '' just what I am going 
to do with you some fine day when you have studied 
hard enough. Put on your rubbers and don’t get 
your feet wet, and tell your father a small amount 
of work and energy would make his life worth living. 
I know the number of your shoes ; I’ll send Mr. 
Maze with a pair next week ; it’s too late to-night.” 

'' Little Brown Eiding Hood, your grandmother 
will never turn into a wolf,” said Gilbert Maze as 
grandmother, to Leah’s surprise, drew the girl into 
her arms to be kissed. 

"'Not even if I am all for getting, and never for 
giving, according to your standpoint, Mr. Maze. 
The Jews had to give one-tenth to the poor, anyway.” 

Their poor were always taken care of, and are to 
this day.” 

So you see,” said grandmother, who never failed 
to have the last word, '' then they could give away 
all they had, for they were sure somebody would 
take care of them.” 

She laughed and took a pinch of snuff. 


AN ARGUMENT AND THE WALK HOME, 73 


“ But Christ gave money once, grandmother,"’ said 
Leah, '' he gave it to Peter to pay his tax. Nothing 
but money would do that time.” Then she ran 
down stairs to the kitchen to say good-by to the 
Scotchwoman grandmother had kept in her service 
longer than anybody remembered, and to put in her 
basket the plum-cake she always baked for Little 
Brother. 

Susan was on her knees scrubbing the painted 
kitchen floor ; there were tears on her cheeks ; Leah 
stood uneasily wondering if she ought to think of 
something to comfort her. 

“ I am only wishing I had died when I was a 
baby,” explained Susan, giving her floor-cloth a vig- 
orous wringing over the scrubbing-pail, '' and then I 
shouldn’t be fretting now because I am a sinner.” 

For such a sorrow Leah could, certainly think of 
no comforting word. 

‘‘ I am glad I didn’t,” she said, her voice fresh and 
young in contrast to the nervous strain of the other 
voice, “ and I am glad you didn’t,” she laughed. 

May I get the cake myself ? ” 

“Yes; but don’t tread on my clean floor. Tell 
your mother grandmother had a bad turn last night.” 


74 


THBEE-AND-TWENTY. 


That's what I am hurrying home for/’ answered 
Leah, opening the door of the cupboard ; oh, what a 
splendid cake.” 

Out in the street the gas was twinkling through 
the damp air; there would be no gas-light along that 
country road, and so few houses. If she might only 
tell Mr. Maze she was sorry she had said she would 
rather go alone. 

With many misgivings, she stepped out into the 
fast-falling twilight ; it would soon be dark, but 
Chase would surely meet her at the half-way rock. 
Her mother had never let her go home alone so late 
before. She went bravely on, forgetting that she 
was afraid, until she reached the gray house. 

The shades were not pulled down ; she caught a 
glimpse of a wheel-chair and the back with a hump 
on it. 

“That’s the way she rides,” she thought; “ITl 
never grumble about grandmother’s cars again.” It 
was growing darker every moment, and Chase had 
not come to meet her. Her mother never forgot 
before. She had tried to be good to-day and nobody 
cared. It was years before Leah Eitchie knew that 
Gilbert Maze followed her in the gathering dark- 


AN ABGUMENT AND THE WALK HOME. 75 


ness all the way home ; he did not lose sight of the 
tripping brown figure until he saw the kitchen door 
open, the light stream out, and heard her mother’s 
voice in troubled expostulation : — 

“ You didn’t come alone, child ? ” 

“Yes, I did. I wasn’t afraid,” the young voice 
answered brightly. 

“ I was going to send Chase after you ; he just 
came home from helping Mr. Field.” 

Then the door was shut and Gilbert Maze walked 
back to town alone. 

Leah’s turn that day was the last turn anybody 
ever had to ride with grandmother in her cars. 

The next day grandmother did not rise until noon, 
the next day she did not rise at all ; one week from 
the day she held the ten skeins of yarn, Leah stood 
at grandmother’s bedside and kissed her good-by 
on her forehead and cheek. She forgot that grand- 
mother had ever been cross or that her eyes shot 
fire. 

“ It was you that made the difference,” said grand- 
mother, with a smile at the corners of her lips. 


76 


TUEEE-AND-TWENTY, 


VII. 

AN HOUR UP- STAIRS. 

“ How doth God know ? ” 

“ He that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know? ” 

“Your father knoweth what things ye have need of.” 

“Chase!” called Chase’s father, from the wood- 
shed. 

Chase’s lips grew sullen. 

“ Chase ! ” shouted Chase’s father again. 

“ Do go, Chase,” gently urged Leah, for her father 
was often cross to Chase ; he was never cross to her. 

“ He wants me to hitch up, and I hate to harness 
horses,” grumbled Chase. “ It’s always horses, horses, 
or cows, cows, or wood, wood, or water, water ; it’s 
always Chase!'' 

He stamped out of the kitchen, slamming the 
door. His sister was afraid she heard a naughty 
word under his breath. 

Chase was such an apt scholar, she sighed ; he 


AN HOUR UPSTAIRS. 


77 


was always learning something from everybody. 
The strangest thing about it was that it was usually 
something had. Why was it so much easier for 
boys to learn bad things than good ones ? 

Was it because there was much more of the bad 
in the world? 

Chase was quick about study and fun, and slow 
about work ; he loved to learn things and he hated 
to do things — things that were not play. 

He rebelled against chopping wood, shelling corn, 
feeding the cattle, shoveling paths, drawing water, 
getting up early in the morning to kindle the two 
fires ; he rebelled against his father’s authority, he 
rebelled with words and without words ; he loved his 
own way, which was so often a bad way, and hated 
his father’s way, which was so often a good. way. 

Nobody knew what to do with Chase Eitchie. 
He did not know what to do with himself. The 
school-master told him he was one too many for 
himself. 

“If somebody would only show me how,” he 
sobbed hard in his pillow one night, when his father 
had sent him up-stairs for disobedience and disre- 
spect. 


78 


TIIllEE-ANB-T WENTY. 


Leah wished she could show him how; but she 
was a girl, and she did not know how to show a boy 
how to live. She knew only a girl’s way. 

As she sighed over her brother and prayed a lit- 
tle prayer for him in her heart, he came stamping 
back and pushed the kitchen door wide open. 

Leah, are you going to church ? ” he asked, 
roughly. 

''No. I must stay with father and get dinner.” 

" I wish I didn’t have to go. Can’t I stay with 
father ? ” he asked in a wheedling voice. 

" And get dinner ? ” she laughed. 

" Yes. We have warmed-over things on Sundays.” 

" I don’t like to have you not want to go. Chase,” 
in her voice of Little Mother. 

" How can I want to go ? I don’t understand 
anything.” 

" You understand the Bible reading. The Bible 
is full of splendid stories.” 

"No, I don’t,” he answered, willfully. 

" Do you know — ” with a twinkle, " that it says 
Harness the horses in the Bible ? ” 

" If it came right down to a fellow like that I 
could understand it.” 


AN HOUB UP-STAIBS, 


Y9 


A thought flashed light into her face as she looked 
at the strong, bright boy in the doorway. She had 
had to learn to love to do some things; if Chase 
were such a good learner he could learn to love 
things, too : to know things and to do things. 

Oh, Chase ! if I find the things that come right 
down to you — about horses and wood and water 
and corn and cattle — will you learn them ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” he answered, still sullenly. 

I’m tired to death of such things, and some day Til 
run away'' 

'"Do,” urged his mother in a laughing voice, ‘'and 
run quick before your shoes wear out.” 

Leah laughed, because her mother laughed; but 
the Sunday dinner was prepared by a sister with a 
very anxious heart. She did not know how to help 
Chase — and her father was so cross to him. Wasn’t 
there anybody in the world to help boys ? 

Was there not anyone in the world to help 
women? was the cry of her mother’s discouraged 
heart that afternoon. 

Leah and Chase had gone to Sunday - school. 
Chase went because he had fun with the boys, be- 
fore and after school, and Leah went because of the 


80 


thuee-anb-t wenty. 


Sunday-school library. There were fifty new books 
in the library, selected and donated by '' a friend of 
Sunday-school children,” the Superintendent an- 
nounced last Sunday, and Leah was trembling with 
impatience to take one of the largest and freshest 
into both her hands. Little Brother, because he 
had a cold, was nestled against Eover on the rug be- 
fore the fire on the dining-room hearth ; his father, 
with lines of care that seemed to have creased them- 
selves deeper that very day, sat in his arm-chair 
with his religious weekly spread open on his knees. 

After watching his wife sweep the hearth, and 
put on another log of wood, he closed his eyes, with 
a groan that she appeared not to hear , — A groan 
usually brought her to his side. After a moment he 
heard her step on the stair; her chamber was her 
sanctuary: he remembered that the kitchen stove 
sent its pipe up through the room, and knew she 
would not be chilly. He remembered her comfort 
oftener than he spoke of it. 

“ I wish I could see clearer,” had been his last re- 
mark. A remark to which his wife had not replied, 
— in spoken words. 

To herself she said : '' Seeing clearer might make 
one more discouraged still.'’ 


AN HOUR UPSTAIRS, 


81 


Fifteen years ago that very day she married 
Chase Eitchie ; he was forty-three, she was twenty- 
three. 

She was the teacher of the village s'chool ; he was 
— what was he ? A scholar, a gentleman, a teacher 
in the High School in Portland, never strong, and 
now in frail health and become a farmer on a small 
farm his mother owned. She was the daughter of a 
man who worked in the factory ; she had earned her 
own education, and had been teaching three months 
when he asked her to become his wife. She loved 
teaching, but she loved Chase Eitchie better ; he was 
fine looking, such a finished gentleman, and he loved 
her. No one else ever had loved her; her step- 
mother had never been kind, her father had rarely 
noticed her. 

To-day, the fifteenth anniversary — her husband 
had- forgotten that it was any anniversary at all, — 
she was discouraged. 

There was more property since his mother’s death ; 
but it was willed to the children, the interest only 
could the parents touch ; Leah must be educated, so 
the will ran, and Chase must have a trade : he was 
not to be allowed to be a sailor; Ealph was not 


82 


TIIREE-ANB-TWENTY. 


bound in any way. Neither the will nor the money 
was making any difference to-day ; it was her hus- 
band and her children — or was it only her husband 
who was taking the very breath out of her life? 
He had told her to-day, this anniversary day that 
he had forgotten, that she was spoiling Chase by her 
indulgence (and how could she help being kind to 
the boy when his father was so cross to him ? ), that 
she made too much of a baby of Little Brother, and 
Leah, her pride, her only daughter — she was not a 
good mother to her. To him was she a good wife ? 
He had not been pleased to say. Perhaps he would 
remember to speak of that after fifteen years more 
of — servitude. 

Her heart was bitter, too bitter to pray. She 
wished that some other mother had her disobedient 
boy and dear Little Brother, that some other mother 
had her only daughter to be a good mother to. « 

Was there not any help? Would not her Sun- 
day afternoon reading help ? 

In the quiet of the room, with the door locked 
she fell upon her knees and asked the illumination 
of the Spirit to fall upon God’s Word for her this 
day. The Word was more than her daily bread. 


AN HOUR VP-STAIBS, 


83 


And then she arose and opened the Word at the 
third chapter of Judges. 

She was willing to live and bear. She was not 
glad to live and bear ; her sorrow was that she could 
not be glad. 

The question vexing her just now she put in this 
way : Was it God who led me into this hard place, 
or did I bring myself into it by disobedience and 
willfulness, and thinking I could see clearly when 
my eye was not single ? 

Had God had anything to do with her bringing 
herself into this place of discipline ? Vexed, dis- 
quieted, with dimmed vision, she sat down to read. 
She read : — 

'‘Now these are the nations which the Lord left 
to prove Israel by them.” 

Israel was a nation; but a nation made of men 
and women. Each person stood out distinct to be 
proved. Israel, then, was herself, Jane Ertchie. 

The nations left might be any circumstance, or 
set of circumstances (for things around was a good 
definition of the word circumstances) that could 
prove or test a person. Therefore, she might truth- 
fully read: "Now these are the happenings which 


84 


THUEE-AND-TWENTT, 


the Lord left to prove Jane Eitchie.” He could 
have taken them away, hut he left them. 

They were about her fifteen years ago, left by the 
Lord to prove her. By a touch of his han5, or a 
breath of his mouth, every thing could have been 
changed, and she would have been outside, instead 
of inside, those surrounding things from which then 
she had not known how to free herself. And how 
could she, indeed, when the Lord left them there ? 

No touch of hers could drive them away, or 
change them into anything but the things to prove 
her. She read on : And they were to prove Israel 
by them, to know whether they would hearken unto 
the commandments of the Lord.” Ah, that was just 
it ! To know if she would listen, or not listen, to 
all she knew of the commandments of the Lord. 

“ The children of Israel did evil! They were 
proved, and failed. They proved themselves disobe- 
dient. These left nations brought out their disobe- 
dience. Her left happenings brought out her diso- 
bedience. And then ? 

'' And when the children of Israel cried unto the 
Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer to the children 
of Israel.” She had cried unto the Lord, oh, how she 


AN HOUR UPSTAIRS. 85 

had cried unto him ! Had he raised up her de- 
liverer ? Turning the leaves to the story of the 
life of the Deliverer upon the earth she found : — 
“And he came to Nazareth, where he had been 
brought up, and, as his custom was, he went into 
the synagogue upon the Sabbath day and stood up 
for to read. And there was delivered unto him the 
book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had 
opened the book, he found the place where it was 
written. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me ; because 
he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the 
poor, he hath sent me to heal the hroken-hearted'* 

She had found her Deliverer. God had sent him 
to heal her broken heart. 

After a few moments, when through her tears of 
penitence and gladness she could see the words, she 
went back to the old story and read : And the 
land had rest forty years. Her rest would be forty, 
and forty years — rest all through this life, and 
never-ending rest, ever-increasing blessedness of rest. 
“And Othniel, the son of Kenaz died.” 

Their deliverer died. Her Deliverer was alive for- 
ever more; alive this hour, and she might speak to 
him and thank him. 


86 


THBEE-ANB-T WENTY. 


“ They did evil again in the sight of the Lord/' 

Her Deliverer would keep her from the evil that 
was in the world. 

And now, the happenings and circumstances 
which God still might leave to ''prove” her, 
whether she would hearken to his commandments 
or not, might, through Christ who strengthened her 
prove a time of ready, constant, glad obedience. 

She knelt again, to pray, with sobs, this self-con- 
tained mother, this reserved wife, who seldom by 
touch or tone manifested her love, to pray that she 
might be made, through obedience and discipline, a 
good wife, a wise mother. 

She unlocked her door, and went down stairs, not 
only willing, but glad to be alive ; and glad to be 
burdened, if so God’s pleasure was. 

" Little Brother,” she said to the boy before the 
fire, " don't get too close.” 

To her husband, awaking from his Sunday after- 
noon nap, she said nothing, but she made milk toast 
for supper, of which he was especially fond. It was 
not her practice to cook upon Sunday, but this was 
a peace offering, and it was their fifteenth anniver- 
sary. 


AN HOITR UP STAIRS. 


87 


But that she did not tell him. 

For the first time since she was a little girl Leah 
kissed her mother at bed-time. She always kissed 
her father good-night. She could not have told her- 
self why she kissed her mother that night, but she 
felt the longing in her mother’s eyes. After that 
night mother and daughter '' understood ” each other. 

The mother believed it came in speedy answer to 
that sobbing moment upon her knees. 

The next anniversary her husband was not with 
her to forget, or remember. And Little Brother was 
drowned — he ran away with Chase to play on the 
wharf; Gilbert Maze brought them both home to 
their mother and sister : the boy dumb with fright 
and the dead child. 


88 


THREE- AN D-T WENTY. 


VIII. 


THE DIFFERENCE. 


“Life is always interesting when you have a purpose 
and live in its fulfillment.” 


— Beaconsfield. 


“ The wind that blows can never kill 
The tree God plants : 

It bloweth east, it bloweth west, 

The tender leaves have little rest. 

But any wind that blows is best.” 

— LiiiEiE E. Baer. 


Leah Eitchie was thirteen when she made the dif- 
ference to grandmother, she was three-and-twenty 
when Gilbert Maze told her that she made all the 
difference in the world to him. It was a December 
afternoon, a storm threatening, like that day he had 
followed her home in the dusk ten years ago ; now, 
as then, she told him, abruptly, that she would 
rather go alone. 

Whether or not it was the old-fashioned book she 
was reading that day that influenced her decision^ 


THE BIFFERENXJE. 


89 


who can say ? Certainly the hero in the book was 
a stronger man than Gilbert Maze. Her mother, who 
loved Gilbert Maze, would have said it was the old- 
fashioned book. 

She came home from the office wearied with her 
day's writing, having begun only that week some- 
thing new and altogether delightful to her, work 
upon the religious paper edited by Mrs. Brown, the 
friend who had encouraged her in her first effort. 

You shall be editor, some day, dear," the editor re- 
marked as Leah put on her hat at the end of the 
weary day. 

The editor's sanctum was in New York City ; in 
New York City was also the New England girl's 
home. 

Since that long ago night that Gilbert Maze brought 
her brothers home, her life had been eventful in a 
girl's way ; her mother could no longer be content to 
stay in the farm-house, and, then, her children must 
have better educational advantages than the village 
school gave them ; Leah must be fitted for college 
according to grandmother's request and bequest, and 
Chase — something must be done with Chase lest the 
-boy and an evil thing to do with himself. 


90 


THBEE-A ND-TWENTY. 


He learned the ship-carpenter’s trade, or made a 
pretense of it, and was always loving and penitent 
every time he came near breaking his mother’s 
heart. His mother’s patience never failed. But 
Leah, in her vehement love for her mother, once told 
her brother that she hated him. 

Brother and sister were never good friends. Leah 
did not love to fight, but she fought her brother for 
the sake of her mother. 

This December day when she went home from 
the editor’s office, she had not seen her brother for a 
year, and for half a year her mother had received no 
word from him. 

Her mother kept the two rooms in order, did the 
family ” sewing, took a walk every day when the 
pavements were dry, because Leah and Dr. Nash in- 
sisted, and read the books Gilbert Maze brought to 
her. She was still glad to be alive. 

This afternoon Leah opened the first book at hand 
— a book always rested her, — and was deep in it 
when Gilbert Maze entered the small sitting-room 
of her boarding house where she was cuddled up in 
a sleepy-hollow chair. 

*'1 do not love you well enough,” she said. 


THE DIFFERENCE. 


9i 


He stood upon the hearth-rug with his arms 
folded as he had stood watching a little girl on the 
carpet among grandmother’s old letters. He was 
not an old man to her now ; he was only ten years 
her senior. But that was old, perhaps, because she 
felt so old herself, sometimes. 

''Do you not love me at all?” he asked patiently, 
for in these years he had learned to be patient with 
the many moods of Leah Eitchie, who had grown up 
to be as saucy as she liked. 

" Yes, at all,” she relented, regarding him in the fire- 
light with steadfast eyes. " I should be ungrateful 
indeed, not to care for you and be grateful.” 

" Keep your gratitude to yourself,” he interrupted 
" that is for your mother, if she must.” 

"But I cannot forget, although I was only a girl, 
just after grandmother died, how you stayed to nurse 
father that cold winter that you dreaded, and after- 
ward, the next summer you brought Little Brother 
home” — "drowned,” she could not bring her lips to 
speak, — "and you influenced Chase that time he 
ran away to sea, and brought him home ; father de- 
pended on you, as a son, that last year of his life. 
But it is only grateful I feel, and you hate that. 


92 


TH11EE-ANI)-TWENTY, 


Mother leans on you, and that touches me more than 
anything. I have an ideal of marriage ; it will break 
my heart not to reach it. Do let me keep my 
ideals,*’ she begged with the enthusiasm of youth. 

''Then I’ll wait,” he said, with the patience of 
middle age. 

" What for ?” she asked, almost fiercely. 

"For you to love me well enough,” he said, smil- 
ing at the glow in her eyes. 

" But I never shall,*' she answered, confidently. 

"You speak with assurance; how do you know 
that?” he questioned, as confidently. 

" How do I know anything ? ” she asked with a 
tingle of impatience. " If I loved you I could not 
help knowing. How do you know that you love 
me ? ” with an audacious laugh. 

"I know it too well.” 

" You know it too well and I do not know it well 
enough. That’s the difference.” 

" All the difference in the world. Why is it when 
I am with you, and when I am not with you, the 
world is two different worlds to me ? ” 

" I hope it will be a better one — without me,” in 
a tone of loving regret. 


THE DIFFERENCE. 


93 


'' How can you look at me and ‘ hope ’ anything ? 
You would dissect me if I were dead, and count 
my heart-beats if I were dying. You are all sophis- 
try and self-analysis. Is this all your college train- 
ing has done for you ? If I were burning up before 
your eyes you would think what to do for me in- 
stead of being sorry.” 

“I should know what to do without thinking; 'I 
was taught so much at school,' as Marian Earle says 
in Aurora Leigh!' 

''I despise myself for loving you when you are 
heartless and flippant.” 

''Perhaps that is a healthier state of mind for 
you,” said the college girl, who had studied psychol- 
ogy* 

" It is a matter of life and death to me, Leah.” 

" Oh, no, Gilbert, it is only a matter of myself or 
some other girl,” she said, startled into levity. 

" Leah, how can you ? ” he groaned. " Why d6 you 
not believe in me ? ” 

" I do not, even good friend as you are. I do not 
believe you are all I wish you to be, all I hope you 
to be, if that is what you mean by believing in you. 
I believe you are what I see you to be, if that is be- 


94 


THE EE- A ND-TWENT F. 


lieving in you. You are not half the man to me, 
or to the world, that you can be ; and even if you 
were all you could be, you might not be the man I 
would be glad to marry. I want to be satisfied and 
glad when I marry,” she said, confused that she 
was moved to speak the words that revealed her 
dream. 

'' Like somebody in one of your novels ? he an- 
swered harshly. 

No ; the story is not in a novel ; it is a true 
story, biography, and autobiography ; I do not know 
why I may not have the best — the best for me, do 
you ? ” she asked in her sincere voice. Is not the 
best in the world for me, too ? ” 

I see clearly enough that you are determined 
that I shall not have the best — the best for me.” 

“ I don’t understand why you have to care so for 
me,” she answered, vexed with herself. 

It isn’t a matter to understand ; I only under- 
stand that I do, that I have for years, and that’s 
enough for every ordinary and practical purpose.” 

'' That is not exactly what I am living for, to serve 
your ordinary and practical purposes.” 

Your ideal is not ordinary, I know.” 


TEE DIFFERENCE. 


95 


But I hope to show you how practical it is/’ she 
hastened to say. 

That will be comforting,” he said sarcastically. 

The book on her lap slid down to the floor. Per- 
haps it was the book. 

“ Is my health — or my weakness your objection ? ” 
he began again, with new patience. 

“Your health helps make you what you are. I 
know indolence and indecision are especially trying 
to me. It is one of your drawbacks.” 

“ What are the others, please ? ” he asked, mock- 
ingly. 

“ Oh, your money, and your general aimlessness,” 
she replied, as lightly as she could. 

“ And particular failures. I am not a success, ex- 
cepting as a failure. I am a lazy dog. I love ease, 
and culture, I am not interested in the great ques- 
tions of the day, I seldom vote, I hate newspaper 
politics. I am an idler and a dreamer, and you are 
a go-ahead, practical woman of business. You 
would make a good reporter. You would like a desk 
in a great newspaper office,” he said, discontented 
with himself. 

“Not quite. You haven’t heard the latest news 


96 


THREE-AND-TWENTY, 


of me. There’s always something latest. Mrs. 
Brown is overworked; you know she is editor of 
The Homemaker y and she has given me something to 
do. Something better than to cover a plate of but- 
ter with it. She does unusual work. She says she 
is fitting me to take her place. She has had that 
position years and years. She knows how. Know 
how is written all over her.” 

‘‘ Take care, or it will be written all over you and 
spoil you for being a woman.” 

'‘You will not like me, then,” she answered sau- 
cily. 

" I mightily wish I wouldn’t, for my own sake. 
If my faults were left out of me, would you take 
me ? ” he asked, sincerely and with humility. 

“ There wouldn’t be anything left,” she said with 
a little laugh. 

"That is truly so,” he answered without bitter 
ness. " I have nothing (but my money) to offer in 
return for your right royal womanhood, and my silver 
and gold and houses and lands are too poor a thing. 
But I do ask that we may be good friends still, that 
this reserve I have broken through for the first time, 
may not make, and keep, a break between us. Will 


THE BIFFEBENCE, 


9T 


you be satisfied to go on in the same frank old way ? 
You may find fault with me and poke at me as much 
as ever.” 

If you will never make another break/’ she prom- 
ised impetuously and generously, and wondered all 
the years after if it were a wise promise. 

“ It is not my way to ask again for a thing re- 
fused. But I will think sometimes of an indepen- 
dent little girl who did not once turn back and there- 
fore did not know that she did not have her own 
way, once upon a dark time. Now, will you show 
me the true love-story you were reading and raving 
about ? ” he asked in his usual familiar and friendly 
voice. 

No, you would laugh at it. I will play for you. 
You laugh at my moods, but you never laugh at my 
music.” 

At bedtime, when Leah kissed her mother good- 
night, she said : “ I am sorry to tell you anything to 
trouble you, mother, but I told Gilbert to-night that 
I do not love him well enough to marry him.” 

Oh, Leah, how could you ? He would take such 
good care of you,” moaned the woman who had not 
been taken '' good care ” of. 


98 


TIIREE^AND-TWENTY. 


'' I can take care of myself and of you, too,” said 
the girl’s proud voice. 

I did not mean only that.” 

I know you didn’t. If you did, I should have 
to try hard to forgive you, you worldly-wise, schem- 
ing, darling, old mother.” 

“But tell me, Leah,” catching the girl by her 
sleeve as she bent over her pillow, “ does he do so 
many wrong things ? ” 

“ No,” said Leah, decidedly, “ he does not do so 
many right things. He is manly enough to keep 
from doing wrong things ; he is not half as naughty 
this very night as Chase is, but he is not manly 
enough to do enough right things. He is lukewarm. 
And of all things, I hate lukewarmness. He is 
neither good nor bad, and I cannot abide him. If 
he should do some thoroughly wicked thing, he 
might be shaken down to his foundation (if he has 
any), and all that cynicism he affects be crushed out 
of him. He meets my seriousness with ridiculous 
quotations, and tells me that my sentiment is senti- 
mental, and he argues just for the sake of argument, 
and I hate that. All he has to do is to draw a 
check, and life is all before him. His check-book 


THE DIFFERENCE. 


99 


is his Bible. I told him so one day — and such hot 
fire leaped into his eyes — he looked as if he could 
strike me.” 

“He does not parade his good deeds,” said the * 
voice from the pillow. 

“He would be his own showman quickly enough 
if he had anything to show,” was the stinging 
reply ; “ I despise a man who mopes in his snug 
corner, and never comes out of it to do anything 
worth doing, or to say anything worth saying. He 
will not even take a church stand, but goes off by 
himself to some heretical or schismatic place, I’ve 
no doubt. And that country place of his — his 
father left it to him — is only a hiding-place to read 
and dawdle in ; he never has any plan of work, or 
building, or using what that check-book represents.” 

“I suppose he isn’t good enough for you,” her 
mother said, disappointedly ; “ and he isn’t if you 
see him clearly. My eyes must be blinded by grati- 
tude and love.” 

“I want to marry somebody, too good for me,” 
Leah answered, with a laugh. 

She remembered these words years afterward. 

Her latest craze was the biography of old-fashioned 


100 


THREE-ANB-TWENTY, 


women ; Gilbert told her she was never without a 
craze ; she was a new-fashioned, old-fashioned woman 
herself. 

Now, mother. I’ll read you to sleep.” She opened 
at the page she was reading when Gilbert Maze in- 
truded his love and himself upon her that after- 
noon. 

'' If it had to come, I’m glad it is over once and 
forever,” she thought, with a tug at her heart. Then 
she began to read in an undisturbed voice : — 

‘‘ The pair that so patiently trusted in Providence 
were led into the paths of happiness and peace. 
After an absence of fifteen years, Mr. Fletcher re- 
turned to England, and immediately wrote to Miss 
Bosanquet that during twenty-five years he had 
entertained a regard for her, which was still as 
sincere as ever ; and, if it appeared odd that he 
should write on such a subject when he had just 
returned from abroad, and, especially without first 
seeing her, he could only say that his mind was so ^ 
strongly drawn to do it, that he believed it to be the 
order of Providence. This letter struck her as very 
remarkable, for she had with the most scrupulous 
delicacy refrained from all communication with him ; 


THE DIFFERENCE. 


101 


and fearing it was wrong to employ her thoughts so 
much about him, she prayed to the Lord to give 
her some indication that he was the man on whom 
she ought to set her affections ; and the token she 
asked was that he should write to her as soon as he 
returned and before he had seen her. 

“ The marriage took place in November, 1781. 
Mr. Fletcher was fifty-two years old, and she was 
ten years younger. Throughout their married life 
they were inspired with a unity of purpose and a 
perfect sympathy of heart, so that it seemed as if 
their souls had actually mingled into one.’’ She 
read the story of their three years of married hap- 
piness, and then shut the book and found her 
mother asleep. 

That’s a pretty story of an old maid a hundred 
years ago,” thought Sweet-and-Twenty, as Gilbert 
Maze had once called her. 

She pondered long over the providence of the let- 
ter, not knowing what to believe about it. If it had 
happened to herself she would have known what to 
believe ; she always knew what to believe when it 
was her own providence. But did God do this for 
Miss Bosanquet ? Was it chance ? But how could 


102 


TnnEE-ANB-TWENTY. 


there be such a thing as chance in God’s good 
world ? 

Suppose Mr. Fletcher had not written that letter, 
or had not written it then'^. But he did write it, 
and write it then. Her prayer and the happening 
fitted into each other. Suppose he had written the 
letter and she had not prayed about it ; then she 
would not have known what answer to give to this 
stranger she had not seen for fifteen years. 

She wrote in her journal afterward that she did 
not feel acquainted with this “ angel of the church ” 
the day she became his wife. But a happier mar- 
riage never was, before or since. 

God had made her prayer and her providence a 
blessing to both husband and wife. 

Still, he could have done it some other way. He 
could do everything in the world some other way. 
He was governing his own world in his own way. 
What was she quarrelling with, or fighting against? 
Had she misgivings because she had refused Gilbert 
Maze without asking the Lord anything about it ? 

But she did not love Gilbert Maze, nor admire 
him, nor trust him, nor respect him — apart from 
her gratitude — her deep gratitude. Mary Bosan- 


THE DIFFERENCE. 


103 


quet loved, admired, trusted and respected this 
John Fletcher, of whose self and work she knew 
much, although not through personal and intimate 
friendship. Mary Bosanquet loved this man for 
what he was to the world — as she hoped to love 
somebody and be proud of him. Mary Bosanquet 
knew she hoped the providence would be a willing 
providence. 

Leah Eitchie was not willing to marry Gilbert 
Maze ; how could she ask God if he were willing ? 
Would she be willing if God were ? 

But what reason had she to think that God cared 
for it to be, that he was marking out her life in 
this way ? 

Not one reason, excepting that Gilbert, poor Gil- 
bert wished for it so. 

Mary Bosanquet had a good reason for wishing 
it; she loved him, and he was a good man. She 
was not sure that Gilbert Maze was a good man. If 
he were a believer, or an unbeliever, she did not 
know; he never talked about himself. He talked 
about everything in the world and out of the world, 
geology, horticulture, history, poetry, travels, every- 
thing under the sun excepting himself. From him- 


104 


THREE- A NB- T WENTY. 


self you would never know he had^a self. How 
could she love him when she knew him even less 
than Mary Bosanquet knew her '‘angel of the 
church.” 

" Oh, dear,” with a sigh that in its acknowledged 
weakness would have been a revelation to Gilbert 
Maze, who believed that he understood every thought 
and mood of this strong-willed girl of many thoughts 
and many moods. " I wish I knew what a provi- 
dence Z5.” 

And then, her heart beat faster, and she hid her 
face in both hands, as a face she knew came before 
her; a boyish face, in its fresh coloring of cheek 
chin and brow, but manly in strong purpose, who 
loved the things she loved, and hated the things she 
hated. 

He loved the things, but he did not love her. 
They were barely friends, certainly not good friends ; 
he was a nephew of Mrs. Brown, and sometimes 
they met at her tea-table. To-day in the street he 
had hurried past her, lifting his hat with a bright 
look ; did she wish him to stop ? What would she 
have said if he had stopped ? 

Then, to keep herself safe from something she 


TEE DIFFEBENCE. 


105 


feared, before she lifted her head or dropped her 
hands she vowed a vow, the vow of Joanna Graham, 
nearly one hundred years ago, made at the commun- 
ion table, which she had found in one of her moth- 
er’s old biographies : — 

“ At the communion table, after my dismissal of 
my Irish lover, I made a solemn vow that I would 
never connect myself in marriage with one who was 
not a decided Christian in profession and practice, 
but would rather lead a single life.” 

The Life of Mrs. Graham was one of her mother’s 
favorite books ; she found it in the bookcase, and 
opening, read again what Mrs. Graham wrote years 
and years afterward about Joanna’s husband : — 

“ He stands in my mind, in temper, conduct and 
conversation, the nearest to the Gospel standard of 
any man or woman I ever knew as intimately.” 

Too excited to sleep, she took the two volumes, 
biography of mother and daughter, to her desk in the 
sitting-room adjoining her sleeping-room, and long 
after midnight finished the dozen pages she wrote, 
entitled: '‘A New York Girl One Hundred Years 
Ago.” 

Mrs. Brown would take it for The Homemaher. 


106 


THUEE-AND-TWENTY. 


This girl was twenty-four, about her own age ; when 
she was twenty-five, and a girl no longer, she mar- 
ried the man she had once refused — a man of faith 
and poverty. 

This girl of a century ago was an influence in her 
life to-night ; she would help her become an influ- 
ence in the life of some other girl. 

Gilbert Maze was not a man of faith and poverty, 
he was like the description of threatened Jerusalem : 
fulness of bread, abundance of idleness.” 

Then the excitement of brain wearing off, with a 
glass of milk and a walk through the room, she lay 
down beside her mother, determined to make herself 
sleep. 

Sleep she must, for work the next day she must. 
All her life she had been compelled to choose 
whether she should be uncomfortable, or allow 
someone else to be uncomfortable. It was hap- 
piness to look back and find that it had not always 
been someone else. But tomight she was deliber- 
ately choosing to disappoint her mother and make 
Gilbert Maze unhappy ; for he did know how to be 
unhappy, she well knew. Perhaps her refusal would 
be like an electric shock and make him the man she 


THE DIFFERENCE. 107 

wished him to be - — somebody in the world of men. 
Then when the clock had struck four, five, and 
she had not slept, she was indignant with herself 
and ashamed of herself. 

That afternoon, as she was hurrying home along 
Fourteenth Street, from a day’s work in Mrs. Brown’s 
office, a doctor’s carriage stopped at the curbstone, 
and Dr. Nash’s black felt hat and long, gray locks 
appeared, bending forward. 

'"Say, Miss Leah, whither away on the wings of 
the afternoon? You will have to fly faster than 
that to escape me. Get in ; I want to talk to 
you.” 

Not about mother ? ” she exclaimed, in alarm ; 
“ she was well when I left her this morning.” 

“And she’s well now, for aught I know. Your 
mother is not the only person in the world to me.” 

“ She is to me,” was the reply, as Leah stepped 
into the carriage, assisted by his hand. 

“ That is a very narrow view of life — not as 
commendable as you think. Have you any influ- 
ence with that erratic young man, Mr. Gilbert Maze ?” 

“ Has anything happened to him ? ” asked Leah, 
with startled eyes and white lips. 


108 


THBEE-ANB-TWENTY, 


“Sit still. How nervous women are. What are 
girls made of in this age of the world? Nothing 
new has happened to him, if that is what you mean. 
Must I drive slowly, or are your nerves in such a 
state that you will scream ? ” 

“ I never scream,” said Leah. 

“ It would do you good once in a while, then you 
would not be so foolishly startled — you would have 
a vent. I ask again, have you any influence over 
that young man ? ” 

“None whatever,” replied Leah, with suspicious 
promptness. 

“Then I have lost time in pursuing you and 
taking you in.” 

“As far as he is concerned, you certainly have, 
Doctor.” 

“Perhaps your mother has, then; he is devoted 
enough to her.” 

“ Doctor, I beg of you, don't trouble mother with 
anything about him. Why cannot he take care of 
himself ; he seems to have no other ambition.” 

“ And he fails woefully in that. I am watching 
him; I live to watch people. If he doesn't take 
care, something will happen to him.” 


THE DIFFERENCE. 


109 


Is he so ill ? He was like himself yesterday.” 

Is he anything else ? Was he ever anything 
else ? He has pluck enough to keep ten men alive ; 
he breathes on sheer pluck, and keeps his heart 
beating by his own steam-engine of a will. If he 
has something to live for hell keep himself alive 
twenty years longer. But life will go hard with 
him if he’s hit under the fifth rib.” 

Doctor, what do you mean ? ” 

Nothing. Whoa. You may get out now.” 


110 


THliEE-AND-T WENTY. 


IX. 

AT MBS. brown’s. 

“ Call it a heart and call it strong 
As upward stroke of eagle’s wing, 

Then call it weak ; you shall not wrong 
The beating thing.” 

— Jean Ingelow. 

Gilbert Maze did not sleep that night, nor for 
many nights. The day after Leah Eitchie told him 
in her young, scornful voice that she “ would rather 
go alone,” he called to consult the physician who 
had been his friend and adviser from boyhood. 
There was nothing to say to the doctor, only that 
life was too hard to live. 

“ You should never be alone night or day,” Dr. 
Nash advised with his usual abrupt kindliness. 

You may die any hour with that heart of yours. 
I have been watching you all the way up from seven 
and fourteen and twenty-one. I know a man who 
will be a faithful servant and nurse, a gentleman in 
manner, quick in an emergency, and as good as 


AT MRS, brown's. 


111 


nobody in the room with you. He will not even 
read your postal cards.’’ 

You shall do no such thing,” Gilbert Maze an- 
swered, hotly ; Do you think I want a man chained 
to me ? I can take care of myself, and, if you don’t 
look out I’ll go to your funeral twenty years hence.” 

His first thought was of Leah, his little girl with 
eyes of brown velvet sunshine.” 

His second thought was of Leah, his thought all 
the time was of Leah. The cry of David, “ And I 
am this day weak, though anointed king,” rang 
strangely in his ears. He would never tell her ; he, 
alone, would bear the burden of himself. He would 
be near her always when she was in the dark, and 
she would never know how that poor heart of his 
was bound up in her weal or woe. 

It was half a year before he dared meet Leah 
Eitchie again ; and, then, he did not dare : he met 
her as he did a great many other things, without 
daring ; he went to her bravely, touched her hand, 
looked into her eyes, watched her comforting ways ” 
and listened to her words and her music. 

She told him she was glad to see him. 

I knew you would be glad,” he said. 


112 


THBEE-^ANB-TWENTY, 


Where are you now ? she asked, as though he 
might be any where, at any time. 

At home. I have a home, you know,” in a tone 
of quiet sarcasm. 

The same day he went to New York to Leah's 
friend, old Mrs. Brown ; her friend, and his own in 
the sense that Mrs. Brown was his almoner, and had 
been for years. Leah Eitchie would never learn 
this, for Mrs. Brown had pledged herself to him that 
her errands for him should be secret errands. 

Of all things,” Gilbert Maze told her, ‘‘ I hate to 
be made a fuss over and thanked. As if the money 
were mine!' 

This day he did not seek his friend as his 
almoner ; he sought her to ask a question. 

Does Leah think of marriage ? ” he asked. 

‘'Is she a woman,” laughed the wife of many 
happy years, the mother of eleven children, and 
eleven grandchildren. 

“Does she care for any one you know?” he 
brought his lips to ask. 

Mrs. Brown loved him ; he knew that : he could 
believe the old ladies did — and pitied him, perhaps. 

“ Have I a right to tell you the secret she does 
not yet know herself ? ” 


AT MRS, BROWNES. 


113 


Thank you ; you have told me.” 

“ But you must ask no more.” 

I have not fallen quite so low as that.” 

I know, because I know her. It does not hurt 
her — yet ; I think it will be kept from hurting her. 
It will round off an angle or two. She is not as 
perfect in my eyes as she is in yours.” 

“ She has no need of perfection — she is herself. 
It is not her fault that she cannot love me ; perhaps 
I should think less of her if she could. I am the 
kind of a man that only mothers love.” 

“ Gilbert, you remind me of the old saying : ‘ Dark- 
ness is the star’s best friend.’ ” 

His eyes shone like the stars they were ; he was 
ashamed of himself that her compassion was break- 
ing his heart. He dropped his head upon the arm 
of the sofa on which he sat and wept; the tears 
rolled down his cheeks, and he sobbed, not like a 
girl, but like a man. 

'' I beg your pardon,” he said, chokingly. “ I am 
sorry to annoy you like this.” 

He lifted his head to find himself alone; when 
she came into the room an hour afterward with a 
small work-basket in her hand, and thimble on her 


114 


THREE-ANB--TWENTY. 


finger, he was standing by the mantel, leaning one 
elbow upon it, with a book in his hand. 

‘‘ My dear old friend, my lips open to you as to 
no one else on earth ; I know how you believe in 
prayer. I am not ashamed to tell you that I have 
prayed, oh, how I have prayed, and the refusal is 
flung in my face as if God had not heard one word.’' 

But you know better than that,” was the answer 
of a sure faith. 

“ I don’t know whether I do or not.” 

“ But you know you ought to know better ; you 
are under obligations to know better.” 

I acknowledge that.” 

"‘Then you will come around all right. You 
always do, you know,” she said, confidently. “ You 
have given up praying for it ? ” 

Most certainly I have.” 

Can you imagine God giving it to you this 
hour ? ” 

^‘Yes.” 

'' Would it satisfy you? ” 

It would make me the strongest man that ever 
worked in God’s kingdom on earth.” 

Then I fail to see that you have given it up.” 


AT MBS. BROWN’S. 


115 


do not hold on to it; it has gone from me.” 
Where has it gone ? ” 

'' It has not ceased to exist ; it is still breathing 
— I think it has gone into God’s will,” he said, with 
reverence. 

“ Then what is your perplexity ? ” 

My perplexity is, what may I, what ought I to 
do about it ? What would God have one to do with 
a prayer one has stopped praying ? ” 

If you have stopped because the thing is wrong 
in itself, stay stopped ; if you have stopped because 
the thing you desire is right in itself, and yet you 
see clearly that you are denied, stay stopped ; if you 
have stopped because you have no faith to go on, 
get faith to go on ; if you have stopped because 
God has stopped you, leave it in his care, and keep 
it left.” 

I am doing that — with the prayer ; but is the 
prayer all ? Is there nothing to do as changes come 
and work changes ? ” 

"‘That sounds as though you had given it up, 
truly, poor, human heart.” 

'' Of course I know I can never give her up until 
I see her another man’s wife. There never was any 


116 


AT MBS. BBOWN^S. 


give up in me. I don’t wonder that I am nothing 
but a poor stick to her.” 

Neither did Mrs. Brown wonder when she thought 
of Philip Vreeland, superb in his physical strength, 
his charm of manner, his happy voice, with that 
irresistible something that draws a woman- to feel 
and know that if this man loved her, he would love 
her with a generous and protecting love. 

The man standing with his elbow on the mantel 
was not tall like Philip Vreeland ; his figure was 
slight, with a scholarly stoop; he had no beauty 
except a fineness of feature ; eyes, betokening large 
spirituality, that shone like stars under heavy black 
brows ; lips, whose nervous play was hidden by a 
mustache a shade less black than his brows ; a voice 
harsh or sweet as his mood was ; a man all too 
conscious of his own infirmities, and who had to 
perfection the art of revealing the worst of himself. 

'‘Do you know what Leah thinks of me?” he 
questioned, in one of his abrupt, harsh tones. 

“ She rarely speaks of you, and then it is in con- 
nection with some kindness shown to her mother.” 

" I thought so,” with a sadness that held no bit- 
terness. 


AT MBS. BBOWN^S. 


117 


‘‘•She thinks you too wrapped up in yourself to 
think of the world of humanity about you — ” 

“ She’s right there.” 

“ She asked me the last time she spoke of you if 
I thought you were a ‘believer’? ” 

“ What does the girl expect ? ” he asked, with a 
laugh that the girl would not have cared to hear. 
“ Shall I recite my creed to her every day ? It’s a 
pity that I do not live it more to her liking. Would 
she like to see my certificate of church member- 
ship ? ” 

“ Could you produce such a thing ? ” 

“Upon proper application. Two or three years 
ago I resolved to confess Christ before the world ; I 
could not keep it to myself any longer, and I chose 
a barn of a church built upon what used to be a 
corner of my grandfather’s farm ; it’s a poor affair ; 
my habit is to ally myself with the weakest. Would 
she like to know how much I give toward the sup- 
port of the minister ; that sometimes I gather street 
boys about me there ? Would she like to be told that 
I sometimes believe enough to say my prayers ? ” 

“ Don’t be a goose, Gilbert,” replied Mrs. Brown 
in her common-sense voice. “ You would be sorry 


118 


THBEE-ANB-T WENTY^ 


for a girl not to care for such things, and take a man 
for his face and figure and money and position. 
Girls think. Perhaps you don’t know it, but they 
do.” 

“I wish they would think to some purpose. I 
suppose you think she does because she takes the 
other fellow. Well, I should think she would ; I 
would take the other girl myself, if one of them 
were like me.” 

Mrs. Brown remembered, but did not remind him 
that Eichard Baxter thanked God for a bodily 
discipline of eight and fifty years. Instead she urged : 
“ Sit down and have afternoon tea with me. I want 
to talk to you about that last * investment ’ of yours.” 

“ Yes, give me a cup of tea,” he shivered, as the 
maid appeared with tea-tray and steaming, small 
brass kettle. 

'' Are you going home to-night ? ” 

“ That is like Leah. A man is not utterly bereft 
who has a home to go to, even if there is no one but 
his old housekeeper to be glad to see him.” 

Has Leah been sharp with you ? ” Mrs. Brown 
asked, as he sat contentedly opposite her, stirring 
his third cup of tea. 


AT MBS. BBOWN^S. 


119 


“ She can so easily be sharp without meaning it, 
that when she does mean it — stand from under. 
She was not sharp at our last brief interview. It 
had to be brief ; I couldn’t stand a long one ; with 
her height, and her eyes, and that way of hers she 
is such a princess.” 

‘‘ A princess and a workingwoman,” laughed Leah’s 
friend. 

Is she that ? Has it come to that ? ” he asked in 
alarm. 

“That’s a good thing to come to. Don’t be a 
goose, Gilbert Maze.” 

He laughed ; his old friend’s timely warning was 
more of an uplift than many wiser words ; sometimes 
he said to himself in remembrance of her : “ Don’t 
be a goose, Gilbert Maze.” 

“ What do you expect to do next ? ” she asked in 
her comfortable tone. 

“ Oh, I have Bancroft, the historian, in mind. I 
shall live to prolong my life, devote myself to my 
rose-garden, live in the sunshine, and allow myself 
no emotions.” 

“ The best thing you can do — for a while.” 

He went away early, walked himself into a glow, 


120 


THBEE-ANB-TWENTY. 


in spite of his increasing lameness, and found him- 
self, not bereft of all hope, in the city of Newark, at 
his own door. 


/ 


ms HOLY LAND. 


121 


X. 

HIS HOLY LAND. 

‘‘ I am His creature, and His air 

I breathe, where’er my feet may stand; 

The angels’ song rings everywhere. 

And all the earth is holy land.” 

— Edward Eowland Dill. 

The house was an old-fshioned house in a new- 
fashioned street, a wide house with large rooms and 
small rooms opening into long and broad halls; 
down two steps at the end of the hall upon the sec- 
ond floor, behind sliding doors, was his snuggery ; 
his couch, his books, a few pictures, some curios that 
he had picked up in his wandering, the portraits of 
his father and mother, and large windows with deep 
sills that looked upon one of his gardens. 

His other garden was of many acres, ten miles 
in the country, a garden with hot-houses, but none 
among his friends knew about that, with the excep- 


122 


THEEE-AND-TWENTY, 


tion of Philip Vreeland, who spent college vacations 
with him, and loved and therefore understood, the 
recluse and wanderer as no other had opportunity. 

Years ago he had become interested in the boy ; 
it was in one of the summers he gave himself to sun- 
shine and labor at Eoseacres. 

Philip Vreeland, in the school vacation, was en- 
gaged by the Eoseacres manager. 

One morning, as the boy worked not far from the 
hammock where the owner of Eoseacres swung lazily 
with a book in his hand, something went wrong with 
the knife in his hand, and his angry exclamation, 
‘'By Jupiter,” reached Gilbert’s ears. 

That evening, as the two, the boy and young man, 
took a walk together, Gilbert remarked in the tone of 
comradeship that had drawn the boy to him. “ How 
comes it that you have such a reverence for that god 
of the old Eomans, J upiter ? ” 

“ Have I ? ” Philip asked, astonished ; “ how have 
I ? I don’t know anything about him.” 

“ I heard you mention his name with considerable 
vehemence to-day.” 

“ Oh, when I was mad. You thought I was 
swearing. I don’t swear. I don’t believe in it. 


HIS HOLY LAND, 


123 


That is not swearing. It is only a classical allusion.” 

“ Only swearing by a heathen god,” was the very 
grave reply. 

But how can it be swearing to swear by Jupiter ? ” 
argued the boy. Paul says an idol (or heathen god) 
is nothing in the world, and you are only swearing 
By Nothing in the World, just for the relief of 
swearing by something.” 

‘‘To swear by nothing is not to affirm much, and 
hardly worth the trouble. Do you remember some 
old fellow said : ajffirm nothing ^not even that I affirm 
nothing?' You are somewhat in his predicament. 
You are of English descent, are you not? Your 
father was born in York, that Eoman city — do you 
remember that a Eoman altar has been dug up in 
one of the streets of York dedicated to the great and 
mighty Jupiter?” 

“Is that so? How interesting. Now you under- 
stand my hereditary instinct. I knew I had a good 
reason,” Philip said, with a merry laugh to hide the 
discomfort of the rebuke from the man he admired 
with a boy’s whole-souled admiration. 

But Gilbert Maze answered seriously : “ There is 
a command older than the city of York and the 


124 


THREE-ANB-TWENTT. 


Eoman altar : ' Make no mention of the name of other 
gods! Suppose you had been a Christian youth, 
passing by that altar, and had sworn ‘ By J upiter,' 
what would a worshipper of Jupiter on the street 
think of you ? ” 

''That I worshipped at his altar, I suppose,'’ was 
the startled reply. " But about the command — 
that may be figurative,” urged the boy who was 
never easily convinced. 

"Then you must not do it figuratively, that is 
forbidden.” 

" I do not ; I do it literally.” 

" Then ' make no mention ' is the figurative way 
of putting make mention, for it must he either figura- 
tive or literal ; in other words, it is permission to 
swear by the name of a heathen god if you do it in 
the right spirit. You must be relieved to know 
there is a command to that effect. Think of David 
understanding it so and swearing 'By Baal.' An- 
other command : Swear not at all, does not contra- 
dict this implied figurative command. How do you 
regard that later command, literal, or figurative ? '' 

" Mr. Maze, you know you’ve got me. But I don't 
pretend to be good,” said the boy, with his frank eyes 


HIS HOLY LAND. 


125 


lifted to the searching, kindly gaze of the questioner. 

“ I sincerely hope you do not. Do you suppose 
you and I can cultivate a new rose together? I 
want to name it for a little friend of mine.’* 

wasn’t born to be a gardener. I am deter- 
mined to have an education if it takes me until fifty 
to get through college. Did you work your way 
through ? ” 

‘‘ I certainly did,” laughed Gilbert, but I did not 
get the work to do by earning the money to do it.” 

In the boy’s next vacation Gilbert said to him 
suddenly one day, as they were packing roses together 
at Eoseacres : Phil, I’d like to invest in you ; I 
always choose paying investments ; you shall go to 
college, then choose any profession you like, then 
you and I will take a year abroad, and you will re- 
turn, do something in the world I’ve not had pluck 
enough to do. Is it a bargain, and a secret ? ” 

A bargain it was, and a secret it always would be 
from every one, excepting the boy’s grand-aunt and 
only friend, Mrs. Brown. 

He said to himself, he owned Philip Vreeland, 
whom he believed it had chanced that Leah had 
never seen ; certainly she had never spoken his name 


126 


TUREE-AND-TWENTY. 


(and by the way, Philip was exactly her age, queer 
that he had never noted that fact before) ; and he 
owned Eoseacres and he could still pack roses and all 
kinds of growing and green things for his hospitals 
and day nurseries and orphan asylums, and he had 
his books, which were at best only dried men,” as 
Beecher put it ; but, at his best, was he not a dried 
man himself ? 

It would be the courageous thing to do to give up 
even the hope of winning Leah, which he could do 
as easily as he could stop the beating of his heart, 
he told himself in his snuggery, the midnight of 
the day he had again faced the girl who would 
rather go alone than go with him, and then he told 
himself that he must give up the hope of her or go 
mad. 

And then he opened the only one among his books 
from which he rarely quoted, and read, and read him- 
self into quietness. 

He lay awake until dawn, making plans in which 
Leah Eitchie had no part (except in the way in which 
she had part in every breath he drew), plans for a 
couple of years in Europe, Egypt and the Holy Land 
with his inseparable companion, Philip Vreeland, 


HIS HOLY LAND, 


127 


who had been graduated with honor from the Col- 
lege of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. 
He had also a plan of adding fifty acres to Eoseacres, 
making it also a fruit-farm, and building another 
story to the cottage for the sake of the children 
of his Scotch manager and the convenience of the 
thrifty wife. Philip Vreeland would care for Eose- 
acres as a resting-place in his old age, and as a play- 
ground for his children ; it would be a pretty wed- 
ding present to that wife whom the boy seemed, as 
yet, to have no thought of taking to himself. 

When he suggested a wife to Philip, only yester- 
day, he replied : '' My work is my wife and children 
and you, dear old man.” 

Philip was growing. Yes, boys grew up and grew. 
It was years since they worked together at Eoseacres. 
He was leaving the old man behind. All the world 
was leaving him behind, since Leah Eitchie scorned 
him. 

Philip had a story, a story that happened in his 
early college days ; but he had not told him until 
yesterday. 

One morning in his college days, he said, while in 
the breakfast hall, suddenly, and without apparent 


128 


THREE- ANJD-TWENTY. 


preparation for it, the question sprang up from 
within him : '' Why should I not be a Christian ? I 
have often promised myself that I would decide this 
question. Why do I not decide to-day ? ” 

He went slowly to his room for study, but the 
question pursued him: ''Why not decide now?'' He 
pushed his books away. He became overwhelmed 
with the consciousness of God, of his own life that 
would never end, of his sins, and sinfulness, of 
Christ, and his salvation for himself, for himself, 
now — What is it to he a Christian ? To be a Chris- 
tian was to be what he was not. It was to love 
what God loved, to hate what God hated. In his 
plan of life he had had no thought of what God 
loved, or of what God hated. 

To do what God willed must be to do the first 
thing God asked him to do. 

‘'I will do it,” he said aloud, throwing himself 
upon his knees ; '' I give myself to thee, 0 God, 
Father of Jesus Christ, my soul, my body, my tal- 
ents, my learning, if any I have, all that is in me, 
all that can be made out of me, I give to thee, to use 
as thou wilt.” Gilbert Maze meditated upon this 
story until his eyes filled, and then he arose and 
knelt in prayer. 


ms HOLY LAND. 


129 


Philip Vreeland had kept the faith ; Philip Vree- 
land would do God’s will in the world. It was 
something to serve one who did God’s will, to be the 
servant of God’s servant. He could not serve Leah 
Kitchie. Why should he quit his wanderings over 
the face of the earth for her sake ? Why not drop 
dead, or be found dead in his bed, in Egypt or Green- 
land as well as in his own library ? It made no 
difference to anybody ; Leah would play her music, 
read her books, pet her mother, and have all her 
ambitions just the same. 

He had his secret ; he would hug it to himself ; 
it was something to live for, this dying when he did 
not know it. His life in a corner had troubled no 
man ; his dying in the wide world or in a corner 
should trouble no man. But there was some one 
else he cared for, a sister of his mother, who had 
married a poor man the same day his mother married 
a rich man ; she was a widow with a limited income 
and a few barren acres, her children had been taken 
from her, all excepting that beauty of a baby girl, 
Phebe Ann, who with baby brevity had named her- 
self '"Pheann.” ^ 

The mother of Pheann was happy on her farm up 


130 


THREE-ANB-TWENTY. 


the avenue, where speculators were opening a street, 
and where her father (and his grandfather) had in 
his prosperous days built a church in front of the 
farmhouse ; she had the church and small Pheann ; 
he would not interfere with her happiness by making 
her richer ; some day — if that other day did not 
come too suddenly upon him, — he would think of 
something to do for this small Pheann, 

The next year he found Chase Ritchie in Liver- 
pool in a hospital, a leg broken, and both wrists 
maimed ; the boy (he would be always the boy to 
him with fearless eyes and a bag of nuts) was too 
discouraged to take up life again, too ashamed to 
face his mother and sister; he took him from the 
hospital into his own comfortable lodgings, and kept 
him with him for a year, a year in which the boy 
faced life again, this time with a new purpose. 

He never told mother and sister the disgrace of 
his story ; he said in a careless way, one day, before 
he went West, with a borrowed two thousand from 
his Liverpool friend, that Gilbert Maze had found 
him and put him on his feet. 

After this year in Liverpool the years went on, as 


ms HOLY LAND. 


131 


they always do, whoever lives or dies, and Gilbert 
Maze grew no worse and no better, as far as he knew 
himself, and wandered whither he would, and 
worked, or idled, as he willed ; when he found him- 
self too homesick, or too life-weary to stay abroad, 
he wandered toward home ; there were always his 
snuggery down the two steps, and his mother’s 
colored housekeeper, old Violet, waiting for him, 
keeping his rooms aired and sunshiny, and Philip 
Vreeland was ever at his beck and call, the most 
devoted friend a man ever had, his benefactor being 
his one enthusiasm outside his large and increasing 
medical practice. Dr. Vreeland’s ofiBces were on the 
first floor of Gilbert Maze’s wide house, and old 
Violet was his housekeeper, a grandson being ofiBce- 
boy, and another grandson the doctor’s driver. Even 
these boys were a part of home ” to the wanderer. 
Nowhere else did he sleep as on the couch in his 
snuggery ; nowhere else was the world so well worth 
living in. 

Of Leah Eitchie in his years abroad he learned 
little; in that little he felt that she was drifting 
farther and farther away from his life — not his life, 
but himself y as she had emphatically put it to him 


132 


THREE-ANB-TWENTY. 


that afternoon, when he dared, in old-fashioned phrase, 
to offer himself ” to her. He had never ceased to 
wonder at his presumption. 

Philip Vreeland wrote (and he read the letter one 
day when he had a chill in a Eussian hotel, and the 
proprietor’s wife had sent her fur cloak to his room 
to wrap the delicate American stranger in) that his 
aunt had resigned the editorship of The Homemaker ^ 
and her friend and co-worker. Miss Leah Eitchie, 
had taken the editorship and was doing excellent 
work on the paper. 

Miss Leah was '‘a caution ” with her repartee and 
keen way of looking straight through you and seeing 
the buttons on the hack of your coat ; hut he found 
it greatly worth while to drop in at his aunt’s supper- 
table to meet her for the sake of her eyes and her 
talk. 


“OUR OWN FAULT. 


133 


XI. 


“ OUE OWN FAULT.” 

“ First of all, you must have the utmost confidence in my 
affection; you must not raise your drawbridge as if you 
were a strong feudal castle that no one can approach.” 

— Madame de Peessens^:. 

“ Mrs. Brown, I am stupider than ever,” began 
Leah, one evening after Philip Vreeland had hur- 
ried back to Newark to a patient, and the two old 
friends sat in cozy confidence over the grate in 
Mrs. Brown’s old-fashioned back parlor. 

“I am not surprised,” laughed Mrs. Brown, 
with the sweetest laugh, and with two dimples as 
pretty, if not as fresh, as a girl’s. 

“ I suppose I show it often enough,” said Leah ; 
“ I did not intend my remark to be a revelation.” 

“But to tell me about the certain thing you are 
stupid about may be a revelation.” 

“ That is what I am not quite ready to do,” re- 


134 


THBEE-AND-TWENTY. 


plied Leah, taking from Mrs. Brown’s ever-present 
work-basket the piece of work that was upper- 
most. ‘‘ I suppose this will help you along as 
much as if I sew carpet rags for you, or pack that 
barrel of things for Alaska, or make a square for 
the silk quilt your next-married granddaughter is 
to have. I don’t believe I shall edit The Home- 
maker and do all the other things you do when 
my seventieth birthday comes.” 

^‘Not if you so steadfastly set your face against 
marriage.” 

“ It isn’t marriage,” acknowledged Leah, diving 
for a needle-book among the soft pile of things in 
the basket ‘‘ so far it seems to be the other essen- 
tial to the marriage — somebody to suit me ex- 
actly.” 

He doesn’t exist,” was the quick reply of the 
wife who had celebrated her golden wedding ; 
that is, to suit exactly ^ 

Then I am satisfied as it is,” said Leah, finding 
Mrs. Brown’s thimble too ample for her slim finger. 

Satisfied and stupid,” laughed Mrs. Brown, her 
plump figure shaking with her merriment. 

‘‘Yes, with that part of it. But Avhat I am 


OUB OWN fault: 


135 


stupid about, and not satisfied with — is provi- 
dences.” 

“Not satisfied with God’s providences? I am 
surprised at you, Leah. I thought you lived very 
even days.” 

“ So I do with my work, and mother, and Chase 
to think about; my days are even enough; it is 
myself that is uneven. I do not understand — so 
many things.” 

“ I should pity you if you understood too many.” 

“ Did not you ever get into a tangle and puzzle 
about providences ? ” 

“ Oh, yes ; I’ve been getting in and getting out 
all my life.” 

“I suppose it is my own fault, as Ruskin tells 
me it is. I have been saying to myself ever since 
one particular thing happened to me : ‘ God always 
gives us strength enough and sense enough for 
what he wants us to do. If we either tire ourselves 
or puzzle ourselves it is our own fauW And I am 
tired and puzzled half the time.” 

“ Make a narrower hem, please. Poor thing, 
what is the rest of it? ” 

“ There is no rest to it, yet,” said Leah, ashamed 


136 


TnBEE-ANB-TWENTY. 


of herself for making a pun. ‘‘ It is only this : 
somebody asked me to do something once, and I 
refused with all my scornful heart ; I thought he 
was only half manly. I could not honor, admire, 
and love a man, however generous he was to 
me and mine, if he were not fine in himself, and 
unselfish in his attitude toward all the world. 
What a person is to me is only half of it. Mother 
does not feel as I do. What a person is to her is 
the whole of it, and the whole of him.’’ 

‘‘But this thing is your concern, not your 
mother’s.” 

“ Oh, yes, that part of it. She understands that 
and tries to forgive me because I see him with 
other eyes. But, there’s another part of it,” bend- 
ing her head lower over the hem she had made 
narrower ; “ from other sources, from several 
sources, I have learned what his life is : a life not 
only beyond my thought of him, but beyond what 
I should have planned and hoped for him. He 
never talked about himself, and still less than 
never about any fine thing he was doing. His 
life is so broad, that mine seems not a finger’s 
width. I cannot tell you any more, for I might 


oun OWN fault: 


137 


betray the confidence Dr. Nash gave me. Dr. Nash 
had to know about some of his plans — a grand 
tenement house, up town, for instance. I hope 
the good old doctor did not break his word in 
telling me about it. I am so out-spoken, and so 
love to tell all the unselfish things I do (when I 
chance to do any), that I could not understand his 
idle, aimless existence. And I said flippantly 
once that he would be glad to be his own show- 
man. I understood only what he was to mother 
and Chase, and my undeserving self ; and when he 
said — one day — that — I thought it was all 
selfishness, and only for love of me. And I be- 
lieved another false thing, that he Avas an Agnostic, 
and went to church only because mother and I 
went. He is delightful in conversation ; but that 
a man should talk and never do made me tired to 
death.” 

‘‘ I should think it might,” said Gilbert Maze’s 
friend, with an amused look in the eyes bent on 
the stocking she was darning for her old husband. 

‘‘ And I am dreadfully contrite.” 

“ I should think you AA^ould be,” in the same dry 
tone, rolling one mended stocking Avithin another. 


138 


THREE- A NB-TWENTY, 


‘‘ Well, it’s all over, and contrition doesn’t help 
any—” 

‘‘ Oh, yes, contrition always helps.” 

It doesn’t help me any ; it keeps me so angry 
with myself that I hate myself. It has taken 
about four thousand pounds of self-conceit out of 
my make-up ; the only one thing I prided myself 
upon was my understanding of human nature.” 

‘‘ But this was a new specimen.” 

To me — it certainly is. I’ve no doubt you 
have met another.” 

‘‘ As like as two peas,” laughed Mrs. Brown ; 
‘‘ but what has all this to do with your provi- 
dence ? ” 

Nothing, perhaps,” murmured Leah, low and 
ashamed. ‘‘ But I do wish life could be as simple 
a matter to me as it was to the woman who mar- 
ried Wesley’s friend, Fletcher.” 

‘‘ What was her secret ? ” 

‘‘The faith of a little child.” 

“ That is a great secret. Tell me the story.” 

Leah told the story she had read aloud to her 
mother that night she scorned, misinterpreted, and 
broke herself away from Gilbert Maze. 


‘‘ OUB OWN fault: 


139 


“ Christ told the people once not to ask for 
signs,” said Leah, after the story was told, ‘‘so I 
do not ^ee how she dared.” 

“ Under what circumstances did Christ condemn 
them for seeking a sign ? ” questioned Mrs. Brown. 

“I do not know,” acknowledged Leah; “the 
simple fact has been enough to frighten me.” 

“I would look a little further into anything 
Christ said before I would be frightened. To 
whom did he say it ? ” 

“ The Jews.” 

“Not to his believing and obedient disciples ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ What are the circumstances ? ” 

“ The J e ws sought a sign from Heaven that they 
might know truly if he were the Messiah ; that was 
their attitude ; and He sighs deeply and tells 
them no sign shall be given them.” 

“Because they had signs. The prophecies re- 
specting the Messiah and the fulfillment before 
their very eyes, were God’s own chosen signs, and 
they shut their eyes to the prophecies, to Christ’s 
life, his words, his miracles, as if all this was no 
account, and asked for a sign from Heaven, As 


140 


TimEE-ANB-TWENTY, 


though these signs were not from Heaven. He 
left them and went away. No wonder.” 

“ Then you do believe in signs ? ” asked Leah, 
eagerly, dropping the work she had been making 
vain attempts to keep busy with. 

‘‘ I believe in God’s chosen signs.” 

“And the lives of people in Bible times are full 
of them, I know. I did not remember that he 
chose the signs. That helps.” 

“ He did not always choose them, as you re- 
member in several instances. But he answered, 
in his pity for human weakness, and his promise to 
human faith. He never answers by a sign when 
it will hinder faith.” 

“ But Mary Bosanquet chose her sign,” urged 
the woman in a strait. 

“ Yes, she did. Mr. Fletcher had been fifteen 
years away from England ; she had had no oppor- 
tunity of learning how he regarded her, and the 
question, after all, was whether her regard was 
according to God’s purpose for her. That God 
answered her faith in this condition of things does 
not at all prove that he will answer you in your 
condition of things. You may have had signs 


OVB OWN FAULT, 


141 


enough to know of your own common sense what 
is right and what is wrong. By reason of use we 
discern, the apostle tells us. God will never give 
us signs that will keep us from using the knowl- 
edge and common sense he has given us. Common 
sense must not grow rusty from lack of use, or 
conscience be put to sleep, or our responsibility be 
thrown upon God.” 

Leah took the work into her hands again ; she 
could think more clearly if her fingers were clear- 
ing her brain ; on her long walks she thought out 
her editorials. 

You are making the The Homemaker quite 
a literary paper, I see,” remarked the editor of 
thirty-five years’ experience, after waiting for a 
reply that was not ready. 

‘‘ Do you object to that ? ” 

“ Oh, no. I am not a literary woman. I 
wanted to help along, and I found writem to write 
for me. You have one success ; who is it? ” 

“ I use the articles as editorials ; I suppose I 
have a right to do that.” 

“ Oh, yes ; I have sent articles to papers with 
my name attached, and without my name ; they 


142 


TIIREE-ANB-TWENTY. 


have been placed on the editorial page. Are you 
keeping the name secret?” 

‘‘ The name keeps itself secret.” 

‘‘ I am glad for you to be so helped. But don’t 
forget my poor ignorant ones, who were helped 
without much literary talent. Often I have pon- 
dered whether or not to use a poor thing, and 
then have been humbled and brought to my knees 
by letters I have received stating that that article 
was just the thing they had been longing for — it 
told them just what to do. Don’t have too much 
intellectual pride.” 

That is my danger,” confessed Leah* And I 
know I do not take time to write the encouraging 
letters you always wrote to young literary aspir- 
ants. You remember the first letter you wrote 
me. I was about thirteen. I dared show what I 
had written to mother, and she told me to send it 
to ‘ Mrs. Brown’s paper.’ I dared, and didn’t 
dare. And then I dared and did. Benjamin 
West’s mother made him an artist by a kiss. 
Your letter made me — the editor of The Home- 
maker. And with the money I bought Little 
Brother his first pair of boots. I shall never do 
such things.” 


OUB OWN fault: 


143 


“ Oh, yes you will, and more of them. I hadn’t 
a spark of real talent. Nothing but common sense 
and executive ability.” 

“Nothing but — But mother will be watching 
the clock.” 

“ To have a mother to watch the clock is some- 
thing to live for, dear.”. 

“ O, Mrs. Brown, have I seemed troubled and 
unmindful of the blessed, blessed things in my 
life ? ” Leah exclaimed, distressed. “ I love my life 
better every day. But I have moods. Gilbert 
Maze said once I was a maid of moods, and not a 
moody maid.” 

“No, no, child,” said Mrs. Brown hurriedly; “I 
was only thinking of your mother and the clock. 
And another thing has come to me about signs : 
Moses told the people if there should arise a pro- 
phet, who gave them a sign, and the sign came to 
pass^ — then you would think because the sign came 
to pass, there would be reason to believe the Lord 
was in it and it must be right to follow the pro- 
phet.” 

“ On the face of it, I certainly should.” 

“ But Moses adds, if the prophet enticed to sin. 


144 


TRBEE-AND-TWENTY. 


they should not hearken unto his words, even if 
the sign did come to pass. You see the perplex- 
ity?” 

It would be a real perplexity to me. The sign 
coming to pass would be from God (for how could 
it be chance when there is no chance ?) and yet 
the prophet would be enticing to sin. I’m afraid 
I should think the sin not a sin if the sign came 
to pass.” 

‘‘ That would be just the trouble. You would 
lay more stress, and give more authority to this 
sign, than to God’s will.” 

‘‘Not quite. I should think the sign was his 
will.” 

“ But how could you think the sin was his will ?” 

“ I suppose I should reason around to the point 
that the sin was not a sin,” Leah acknowledged 
frankly. 

“ I thought so. That is what a dreamer of 
dreams would do. One who cared more for God’s 
will would find another way out. The sin would 
be sm, and God’s word would stand for that and 
against all the signs come true, that ever were in 
the world.” 


OUE OWN fault: 


145 


‘‘ Well, then,” in the argumentative tone of her 
childhood, I allow that I care most for God’s 
will, and understand that I am being allured to 
sin ; how can I reconcile the truth that it is God, 
by allowing the sign to come true, and who is al- 
luring me to sin ? It would break my heart to be- 
lieve that he is unfair to me. It would break my 
heart to believe that he was treating me as I would 
not treat a child, not only for the sake of the child, 
but for the sake of the truth.” 

“In the first place, you are not a child. We 
are told not to be children in understanding. You 
would treat a child of five years, and one of fifteen 
in a different way. Forget the child of five, think 
of the girl of fifteen, who had been told again and 
again, and yet again, what your will Avas in a cer- 
tain thing : Avhat would you think if she should al- 
low herself to be enticed away from it by a fortune- 
teller whose sign came true ? ” 

“ I should think that she was willfully disobe- 
dient ; I should tell her that she ought to know 
better, and deserved to find herself in a strait.” 

“I’ve not a doubt of that,” laughed Mrs. Brown, 
“ and in rather vehement language, beside.” 


146 


THBEE-ANB-TWENTY, 


And still, I think,” pondered Leah, I should 
not know what to do about the sign.” 

“ But God does know. You could not allow 
such a thing to chance, even to your girl of fif- 
teen. God can. He knows what to do about the 
sign.” 

‘‘But I do not yet; I am his girl of fifteen.” 

“ His obedient girl of fifteen ? That makes the 
difference.” 

“ I hope so,” said Leah. “ I do think my dis- 
obediences are ignorances, and not wilfullnesses.” 

“ Then you are ready to know his reason : The 
Lord your Grod proveth you^ to know whether ye 
love the Lord your God with all your heart, and 
all your soul. He has a right to prove you, has he 
not? ” 

“ All his sovereign right and might,” was Leah’s 
glad assent. “ I can imagine this : suppose Mr. 
Fletcher had proven Mary Bosanquet’s sign true 
by writing that letter, and then, that she had 
known that he was an unbeliever, one who would 
draw her away from the faith ; the sign should 
have gone for nothing but to prove her ; she should 
have refused him in spite of it.” 


^^OUR OWN fault: 


147 


“ Most certainly so.” 

“ But he was a believer ; they lived a holy and 
most useful life, helped by each other.” 

“ I have nothing to doubt about her sign — that 
was the Lord’s care a hundred years ago. We are 
only learning when a sign is to be followed or not 
to be followed.” 

But can you imagine one who had faith to ask 
a sign, willing to do, rather desirous to do — some- 
thing not altogether right,” 

‘‘ Oh, yes,” smiled the old lady, shoAving her 
pretty dimples. ‘‘ I can imagine an imaginative, 
adoring, self-sacrificing nature doing just that 
thing : her very virtues blinding her eyes to God’s 
will.” 

“ I can too,” refiected Leah, ‘‘ but how her nature 
must be twisted.” 

‘‘ Or how not taught,” corrected Mrs. Brown, 
‘‘ or how unsurrendered to what she knows to be 
truth.” 

“ Then it seems to resolve itself into this : that 
it is better not to entangle your judgment with 
‘ signs,’ but go on a plain way, using your sanc- 
tified common «ense.” 


148 


THBEE-AND-TWENTY, 


“Exactly that. Now you will know what to 
say to the next girl that asks you.” 

“ And what to do myself,” thought this woman, 
who was still a girl to the woman of threescore 
and ten. 

In her brown suit, and brown hat with its long 
ostrich plume, she stood under the chandelier, with 
the light of hope in her eyes and the color of hope 
in her cheeks, the same Brown Riding Hood that 
had stood before grandmother, older and wiser, 
happier, because every day she grew into the knowl- 
edge of God, she grew into his joy. 

“ Gilbert Maze is expected by the next steamer, 
Philip said to-night,” Mrs. Brown remarked, pick- 
ing a scrap of blue yarn from the carpet. 

“Yes, after how many years? Mother had a 
letter from London — the last one was from Swit- 
zerland, inclosing a sprig of edelweiss. He did 
not speak of returning. Dr. Vreeland has the 
latest news.” 

“ He always has the latest of everything. He 
would set your limbs in the latest style, or bring 
you through typhoid fever in the height of fashion. 
He has written something in French for a Paris 


OUB OWN fault: 


149 


medical journal. We are proud of our boy, Gilbert 
Maze and his old auntie.” 

‘‘ And you are proud of Elizabeth Dare also.” 

“ Oh, yes ; if you only live long enough you will 
own plenty of people to be proud of.” 

For an instant Leah wished some one in the 
world were proud of her — beside her mother. 

I ’ve been thinking about your question, dear ; 
the Jews asked a question tempting; if we ask a 
sign, let it be trusting.” 

Mrs. Brown, you have lived a long time ; don’t 
you think life is hard, even with the compensation 
of loving and working ? ” 

“Very hard, sometimes. Perhaps it is meant to 
be,” said the woman who knew. 

“ But it is our own fault — often,” acknowledged 
the woman who thought she knew. 

“ I ’ve no doubt of it,” said Mrs. Brown cheer- 
fully. 

Mrs. Brown was Leah Ritchie’s “ elect lady.” 
Not St. John loved his elect lady more. 

“Wait a moment; sit down,” said Mrs. Brown, 
pressing her into a sofa-corner. “ I must tell you 
this. I have n’t thought of it for years. How you 


150 


THBEE-ANB-T WENTY. 


bring my perplexities back to me. Years ago, when 
I was as eager for work as a war-horse is for battle, 
and fairly snorted for it, I prayed for a ‘ leading,’ 
and the leading came in a letter from England. A 
lady editor over there wanted a series of papers for 
a working-girls’ paper, and thought I knew how to 
do it. I thought I did myself. How I did give 
thanks for that leading. It was as much to me, 
in its way, as that letter Mary Bosanquet prayed 
for and got. I saw no reason in the world why I 
should not do it. The circulation of the English 
paper was about five times as large as mine, and 
how I could talk to thousands of English working- 
girls. My economical soul was delighted because 
I could use the same articles in my own paper — 
paid twice, and do good twice. Oh, it was a 
royal chance, and an answer to prayer. A real 
‘ sign ’ that God was willing to use me.” 

‘‘ I thmh so,” ejaculated Leah. 

“ But what was the ‘ sign ’ when I found that I 
could not do it and do my whole and perfect duty 
to my husband and family ? It must be done 
within a certain time, and that time had a duty 
called of God before that letter came ; it almost 


^^OUB OWN fault: 


151 


seemed, while my tears were raining down upon 
my letter of refusal, that somebody might help me 
out,* by doing the more ordinary work that any- 
body could do ; but nobody did, and I had to.” 

“ Then one sign contradicted another ? ” said 
Leah. 

‘‘ Did it ? Think it over. Find your way out.” 

Leah went home and thought it over, but did 
not find her way out. Still, she had learned suf- 
ficiently not to ask a sign for her own guidance ; 
she was not Mary Bosanquet, she was Leah 
Ritchie. Not the child who knew nothing, but the 
woman who had been taught ; and, then, what was 
sweeter than to wait? To wait for what God 
knew and would tell her. 

The day before the City of Rome was due, after 
a shopping expedition with two girls she loved, 
Sarah Field and Elizabeth Dare, Leah ‘‘ ran in for a 
minute,” as she was apt to do, at the top-story 
flat where Mrs. Brown and her husband made 
their comfortable home. 

“ Why, Leah Ritchie,” welcomed the voice that 
was always glad in the speaking of her name; 
“ when I was just thinking about you ! ” 


152 


TIIEEE-AND-TWENTY. 


‘‘I hope I do not come as often as that,” 
said Leah, depositing her few bundles on the table, 
‘^but I had to come to-day, — as usual. Those 
girls ! They are the death of me — Elizabeth Dare, 
with her artistic instincts, will have every shade to 
match the prevailing tint of her soul (at the mo- 
ment), and Sarah Field is such a dear, childish 
little thing that I am in despair about the good 
she will ever do with her herself, or her inherit- 
ance, and, between them both, and the lunch 
Sarah lavished on us, I am out of breath. She 
spends money as if it grew on every bush, as if 
every leaf were a greenback, and I am wanting a 
tenth of it this very minute to pay mother’s doc- 
tor’s bill. I am too proud to let Dr. Vreeland send 
it in : I write the most dignified little note and ask 
him to send it at his very earliest convenience — 
and then he laughs at me. But mother is growing 
to be a strong old lady after all her tribulations, 
and, by and by, there’ll be no doctor’s bills for her 
to groan over and me to be proud about.” 

“ I suppose you young folks must have it out 
together, but your pride hurts him.” 

Pride has to hurt somebody,” said Leah, “ but 


OUn OWN FAULTS 


153 


I do not care, if it doesn’t hurt me. What do you 
think ? Robert Leavenworth — my little sweet- 
heart — was at prayer meeting last night — he 
is Dr. Hope’s new assistant, and he has that same 
winningness he had in his babyhood. And some- 
thing he said went to my heart— how did that 
baby ever learn it ? It was not about ‘ signs ’ or 
‘ providences,’ but it was under that head to me. 

‘‘How I remember,” running on in happy, rem- 
iniscent tone, “ one day, he was nearly three then, 
but he had his bottle, his dear bottle to go to sleep 
with — it was his noonday nap ; he Avas voracious 
that day, and, after he finished one, Avanted an- 
other; but he had a naughty way of getting off 
the bed and playing Avhen he was left alone, and 
that made him too wide-awake for his nap — so 
that day I impressed upon him that he must stay 
on the bed until I hurried back with the bottle 
freshly filled, and he Avas impressed and promised 
with all his little might. Then I stood outside 
the door, afraid that I Avas tempting him to tell a 
lie — the time Avould seem long in his short count- 
ing, and the temptation, Avith his blocks on the 
floor, was so great for such babyhood, — and I 


154 


THBEE-AND-TWENTY. 


prayed hard that he might love the truth, and re- 
member and withstand. And he did. He was on 
the bed, with his hands all ready for the bottle. 

His eyes are as big and brown as ever, but in- 
stead of curls of shining gold he has ordinary dark 
hair. He helped me once with a little text of 
his own, out of his own deep experience of need 
and confidence, and now he has traveled far 
enough on his own road to tell me what I was so 
faint to know. If a sign came in answer to prayer, 
as Mary Bosanquet’s did, did not that make a dif- 
ference? He said: ‘God gives an answer to prayer 
to prove us, just as certainly as he allows other 
trials to come to pass ; ’ and I had been thinking 
the proving was all over when the answer came.” 

“ I am glad he is as far on as that.” 

“ He has to be far on — to tell us,” said Leah. 
She was provoked with herself all that day because 
she dreaded to tell her mother that Gilbert Maze 
was homeward bound. 

“ Mother,” she said the Saturday Gilbert Maze 
was expected home, “how long is it since you 
heard from Gilbert ? ” 

“ Two months, and I did not reply because he 


OUK OWN fault: 


155 


said his movements were uncertain ; he might sur- 
prise us some day.” 

‘‘ You did not tell me that.” 

“‘No, I did not, Leah. I think you do not 
deserve to know anything about him.” 

“As much as I do about anybody or anything, 
perhaps,” said Leah, with a light-hearted laugh. 

“ Dr. Vreeland always knows his goings and 
comings,” continued Mrs. Ritchie; “you had but 
to ask him.” 

Leah thought she preferred to remain in densest 
ignorance. 

“ He is like Browning, who said people might 
look through his windows, but not cross his 
threshold ; I have never even looked through his 
windows.” 

“ Or cared to cross his threshold,” replied her 
mother, whose heart was still sore over Leah’s 
refusal of this friend of a quarter of a century. 
“ But, Leah, I hope you will be different to him 
now,” with impressive significance. 

“ There will be no need, or occasion,” said Leah, 
“ and I don’t know how to be different.” 


156 


TUREE-ANB-TWEN TY. 


XII. 

ANOTHER STANDPOINT. 

‘‘Life is the best thing we can possibly make of it.” 

— George W. Curtis. 

“ Life is a tumble about thing of ups and downs.” — Disraeli. 

I WAS nineteen years old the day father gave 
me that blank book ; it was the handsomest blank 
book I had ever seen ; such a big, broad, thick, deli- 
cious book, smooth paper easy to write on, bound in 
leather, and when I said all it lacked was a clasp, 
my dear, indulgent old father had a clasp put on 
it, a silver clasp, with my three initials, S. L. F. 
‘‘Now daughter,” he said, “ write your life from a 
girl’s standpoint.” 

Then how he laughed when I said seriously, 
“ But I must live it first.” 

So I lived it first and then wrote it down. 

It frightened me at first ; the thought that what 
I should say and do must cover those smooth 
white pages, and then I thought : “It isn’t you 


ANOTHER STANDPOINT, 


157 


all alone ; it is you, and other people writing all 
those pages. And God helps.” 

And then I wrote bravely; whether I lived 
bravely I do not know. My book is only chap- 
ters out of one girl’s life, written by herself in a 
simple, impulsive fashion; a book ‘‘made of me,” 
I thought at first until cousin Leah showed me that 
myself should be the least part of the real me. 
On the first blank page father wrote my name in 
his upright hand: Sarah L. Field. 

He said I might Avrite my title, my business, my 
vocation, after my name, and suggested Highflyer, 
Behindhand, Fidget. Then he gave the book to 
mother, and she wrote : Enthusiast,, she 

knew, before the book was written through, I would 
learn its perfect meaning. 

But what was a girl’s standpoint, I wondered. 
Father thought this writing would take the place 
of boarding-school to me, and the girls, Pheann 
Douglas, and my own beautiful, still, strong Eliz- 
abeth Dare. 

For a while my eyes and spine must rest, or do 
restful things, or work in the best way, the spe- 
cialist told mother. He said my nerves had been 


158 


TIIREE-ANB-TWENTY. 


overwrought, and she must take care or I would 
dream dreams and see visions. She did not repeat 
this to me ; I could not help overhearing her when 
she told father that boarding-school had not been 
the best place for me. 

I know now, when I think it over, that it has 
been my own fault ; I studied only the books I 
was most interested in, and left every practical 
thing out ; all the professors and teachers knew 
I was allowed to have my own way (I am almost 
ashamed to write it on this page — the white page 
blushed red under my pen) ; that I was, as Professor 
Rich told Miss Mayhew, “a beauty, an heiress, 
and a spoiled child.” I almost believe they are 
three dreadful things to be, and have tried not to 
dress as becomingly as I can, and to forget that I 
am father’s only child, and not to be spoiled any 
more than I can help. But I harve always been 
loved and petted, and say with Charles Lamb : 
“ How I do like to be liked, and have what I do 
to be liked.” 

Mother said father should not have given me 
this book ; that it would make me self-conscious. 
But he laughed, and said it was only for quota- 


ANOTHER STANDPOINT, 


159 


tions and to amuse me. He thinks I was born to 
be amused, and would not have me a business 
woman, like cousin Leah, for anything. (Still he 
admires cousin Leah.) He was a big boy on his 
father’s farm when she was a little girl and played 
with his sister; his sister was Elizabeth Dare’s 
mother ; and my mother was Mary Dare. That is 
the way we claim cousinship with Leah Ritchie. 
Elizabeth is not an heiress, nor a spoiled child ; 
she is a worker ; she is a born worker ; she is a 
born-many-things. She is strong, and able to be a 
hard student; her splendid health is one of the 
reasons of her splendid beauty. Her own mother 
died long ago, and a kind of auntie, dear Mrs. 
Brown, has been her real mother. It is through 
Mrs. Brown that she was educated at Mount 
Holyoke. Mrs. Brown is not rich, and has many 
ways for her money to go ; and it was through 
Mrs. Brown that Elizabeth has had all her privi- 
leges. She told Elizabeth that the money came 
from a friend of her own (not Elizabeth’s) who 
was interested in education, and she must make 
it a point of honor to give it back to the world. 
After Elizabeth was graduated from Mount Hoi- 


160 


THBEE-ANB-TWENTY. 


yoke, the same friend of education (through Mrs. 
Brown) gave her two years of study abroad — 
study of the Deaconess Work among other things. 
I think Elizabeth is puzzled about her point of 
honor — puzzled how to give back to the world 
what the world has given to her. But she is 
thinking and dreading something ; perhaps she is 
resisting something. Neither Mrs. Brown nor 
cousin Leah will lift an eyelash to help her de- 
cide. Perhaps they know exactly what it is. 
But I think Mary Ashton will help her decide. 
Mary Ashton says : ‘‘ Whoever touches me, touches 
a ball of missionary fire.” 

Elizabeth is an enthusiast about Mary Ashton’s 
work. She is an enthusiast about cousin Leah’s 
work too, and Dr. Vreeland’s work among the 
poor and the rich. She is not an enthusiast about 
Gilbert Maze. She says he travels about a great 
deal in his own fenced-in world, and not in the 
world other people see or live in. He stands aloof 
from her; I think he feels that she despises him. 
What Elizabeth Dare thinks is a great deal to Eliza- 
beth Dare. One rainy July week we went to New 
York together to stay with cousin Leah and Aunt 


ANOTHER STANDPOINT, 


161 


Ritchie in their pleasant boarding-house. (Cousin 
Leah cannot afford to keep house. Keeping house 
is one of her dreams.) I know father thinks 
cousin Leah will steady me ; mother has not 
time ; mother is so educated and such a lady, so 
well-read, and so musical, and sought after, that 
it is a little dreary for her to finish me. She sees 
clearly that I need finishing touches. She says 
she can no more teach me than write an oratorio. 
I would like to write (only it would vex father) 
Sarah Field, Simpleton,” in this book. I have 
always been a simpleton ; I never understand 
quickly like Pheann and Elizabeth. Cousin Leah 
is patient with me ; she says it again and makes 
it plainer, as no one else does. I suppose father 
thinks things will be plainer to me, if I live them 
through and write them down. 

One thing I cannot bear, cannot really bear, is 
responsibility, I want God to bear all my respon- 
sibility, and let me be always his simple little child. 
But I must write what cousin Leah told us, one of 
those rainy mornings. — Dr. Vreeland had just 
gone and we had been full of frolic (he is such 
fun), and Elizabeth and I sat on hassocks near 


162 


THBEE-AND-TWENTY, 


cousin Leah, who was knitting (she is never idle) 
and listening to our girls’ chatter, which she likes. 
Elizabeth is twenty-two, and has studied every- 
thing, and has something on her mind. 

Cousin Leah is thirty-six. She is the oldest 
friend I have. We always confessed to her; she 
is our counsellor. She is not married, and under 
our breath, we suppose she must be ‘ an old maid.’ 
She would have been too old to be my friend, but 
that she was my second cousin; she has always 
been old to me ; I do not remember when she was 
young. But when we were in perplexity Eliza- 
beth and I were glad that she was old. We 
thought she had outlived our good times, and 
hoped, we were even sure, that she had a certain 
kind of good times of her own. I was confident 
that she never wished for the things I wished for, 
and that she never thought at all about her per- 
sonal appearance. I never thought whether she 
was pretty or not ; I supposed she was too old to 
care. I cared, but nobody knew that. 

I believe Elizabeth could say anything to cousin 
Leah : one reason was that she always understood ; 
another, that she was so far away from us that it 


ANOTHER STANDPOINT. 


163 


was like telling some being in another world. 
She was set apart; we had a kind of worshipful 
love for her. 

You said once,” began Elizabeth, in her way 
of being ready for something delightful, ‘‘ that cir- 
cumstances interpret our prayers ; make the answer 
plain to us. I do not see how ; circumstances are 
baffling.” 

Then let me tell you about a woman I 
knew. Eagerly, anxiously, with faith, and without 
faith (for a great many prayers are prayed without 
faith), she pressed upon God a certain hunger of 
her heart, and then she watched the circumstances 
that would bring it. For five years she prayed, 
and hoped, and watched, and when the end of it 
all, praying, agonized hoping, long watching, came 
upon her, it came with a great shock of surprise, 
with a feeling of terror that the Lord should let 
her hope so long for something he had, all that 
weary time, not one thought of granting.” 

“I should think it would have killed her,” I 
said, trouble was unbearable to me. 

‘‘ It did for one moment that will always stand 
out in her life as truest agony. Then she let go 


164 


THREE-ANB-TWENTY. 


her hope, and held on to God. Oh, how she 
did hold on to him. There was no one beside in 
earth or heaven to hold on to. When her heart 
could pause in its feverish beating, and her eyes 
could see with a vision cleared by tears, she saw 
what she had been blind to, how he had been 
answering her all her waiting time ; so persistent 
had she been in hoping to have her own way, that 
everything in her was set not to understand his 
way. It was rebellion, only, poor heart, she did 
not know it. From her first prayer she had taken 
it for granted (with more zeal than knowledge) 
that his unwillingness would be overcome by her 
faith, and, in everything that happened, she had 
no vision to see anything except favoring circum- 
stances. If nothing happened, she braced herself 
by believing that the nothing was to try her faith ; 
if anything discouraging, why, that was to try her 
faith. Her faith grew so large before her eyes 
that it shut out God. When, by any twisting of 
happenings, a favorable reply could be wrung out, 
she was radiantly triumphant ; her faith had con- 
quered.” 

“ And then ? ” said eager Elizabeth, who I know 


ANOTHEE STANDPOINT. 


165 


was praying for a clear way to do her heart’s 
desire. 

“And then she learned that if she had taken 
for granted that God’s answer, his denial, would 
be shown in the circumstances of her life, she 
would have seen clearly from the first. She was 
looking only for ‘ Yes.’ She had not learned that 
‘No’ was one, of his imperative, necessary words, 
written in his own handwriting of providences.” 

“ But,” I sighed, “ providences are so puzzling. 
There ’s nothing in the world so puzzling as 
things that happen.” 

“ Is your father’s handwriting puzzling ? ” 

“Yes,” said Elizabeth, “he makes queer little 
lines and things ; I had to learn to read it as if it 
were the writing of another language.” 

“ That is exactly what this woman of faith did 
not do; she did not learn to read her Father’s 
handwriting. As soon as she learned how to 
form a few characters, which made her own hand- 
writing, she was satisfied, forgetting that * queer 
little lines and things’ have to be pondered and 
learned to be understood. A letter from your 
father comes in his own mystic characters (he cer- 


166 


THREE- A ND-TWENTT. 


tainly has a right to choose his own style of com- 
munication with his child) ; even were your eyes 
clear of tears, and your heart from misgiving, you 
could not decipher it ; what is the only one thing 
the obedient child must do? If you are heedless 
you will cast it aside : it is not worth your 
trouble ; if you read it carelessly, and misinter- 
pret, the disaster falls upon your own head. What 
are you living for except to learn the method of 
communication between your father and your- 
self ? ” 

Oh, dear,” said Elizabeth, “ that ’s another 
language to learn.” 

‘‘No more than the mother-tongue is another 
language for a child to learn ; with this learning 
comes a heavenly aptitude. My woman of faith 
had not learned the alphabet of her Father’s lan- 
guage. I do not believe in all those years she 
once asked him to open her eyes to see his an- 
swer ; she was always beseeching for her answer. 
She knew afterward how plainly, how emphatic- 
ally had been the denial shown in the happenings 
of those years — everything had pointed in the 
one way of denial ; the few events that had not 


ANOTHER STANDPOINT, 


167 


pointed that way were as natural and not to be 
hindered as the law that water runs down hill. 
She called this praying and watching. What 
would you call it ? ” 

‘‘An hour ago I should have called it prayer. 
What is it if it isn’t prayer ? ” I asked, wondering if 
I had never prayed in my life. 

“ Within the first half year of the five she might 
have had his denial — after the low, gentle, loving, 
sympathetic ‘ no ’ so many and many times spoken, 
in his mercy to make her understand, the denial had 
to be spoken loud and stern, taking her breath away ; 
as a father must speak to a rebellious child.” 

“Oh, dear,” I exclaimed, frightened, “if you once 
begin to pray in dead earnest you don’t 'know what 
you will have to go through.” 

“Willfulness never knows what it has to ‘go 
through.’ That it takes the form of prayer makes it 
not the less willful. Some natures pray almost as 
naturally as another nature scolds,” said Leah in the 
tone you never dared contradict. 

Elizabeth and I looked at each other. We did not 
believe that. We thought it was not nature that 
prayed, but the grace God had granted us. 


168 


TBBEE-ANB-TWENTT. 


But I did not know how to say that ; or perhaps 
I was too shy, even with cousin Leah. Not even 
Elizabeth knew how I prayed for everything, from a 
letter I wanted, or pleasant weather, all the way up 
to the forgiveness of my many sins. 

''But those puzzling, baffling, deceiving circum- 
stances ! That isn’t quite clear to me yet. God let 
her be deceived. And she was so full of hope ! ” said 
Elizabeth, speaking my own thought. 

" In her first agony she cried out to him, ' I 
wouldn’t have treated you so.’ ” 

" That is too sad,” said Elizabeth. 

" Oh, no, God’s stories are not too sad. His own 
chosen people (you and I are three of them) he al- 
lowed to be deceived, taken by craft; when the 
Gibeonites came with wine bottles old and rent and 
bound up, and old shoes, and old garments, and 
bread dry and mouldy, they 'did work wilily’ to 
tempt Israel to make a league with them. That 
was something to understand, and the simple dwellers 
in the wilderness did not understand. They could 
not read God’s strange handwriting ; they acted in 
their own simplicity, and brought war upon them- 
selves. Asking God what he intended them to un- 
derstand would have made all clear.” 


ANOTHEH STANDPOINT, 


169 


‘‘ Then a safe prayer would be, ' What does this 
mean ? Show me how to read thy writing in my life 
to-day,* ” Elizabeth said, slowly. 

'' Then we would understand as soon as God spoke 
his answer to our prayers,” answered Leah. 

“ Was her answer only this ? Being deceived, 
disappointed, and having to let go that thing she 
wanted ? ” I demanded as if such a thing would be 
too cruel. 

“She let go that certain thing in that certain 
phase of it. But afterward he gave her that same 
thing in another way. He thought his giving was 
better than her asking. The lessons she learned in 
that five years were in answer to many prayers ; for 
she had prayed to be made pure, patient, unselfish, 
useful, and his answer gave her blessed opportunity 
to be this if it were in her — she came out of his 
second answer as gold tried in his fire.” 

“Why, then,” said Elizabeth, with joyful eyes, 
“ she had the most beautiful answer God knew how 
to give. Nothing was lost.” 

“ Nothing ; for he gathers up every crumb of 
prayer, and moulds it into the very bread of life.” 

I repeated that to myself: '' every crumb of 'prayer 
and moulds it into the very bread of life!' 


170 


THREE-ANI>-TWENTY, 


Leah had been telling ns her own story, I was 
confident. She has a great many own stories to tell. 
She is living stories all the time. Mother had told 
me (in strictest confidence) that cousin Leah had re- 
fused four times to he married — not to be married 
at all, exactly, but she had refused four men. I 
wonder that Leah told her. I should think she 
would be too sorry to talk about it even to mother. 
Perhaps mother knew it from them. (No : I think 
Aunt Eitchie must have told, — Leah tells her. 
She said to mother : ‘‘ Perhaps I love study and 
travel and work too much to care for the settling 
down. Mother is my anchor ; I do not need mar- 
riage.”) 

Her large desk, like a man’s desk in an office, 
looks like work and study; she has ‘exchanges’ 
like any other editor, and piles of books to write no- 
tices about, and her days are more like a man’s days 
than a woman’s. Still she loves fancy work like 
any girl. 

Her father died when she was a little girl ; her 
only brother is married and has wife and children to 
work for away out West. Leah has to be the man 
of the family, and support her mother and herself. 


ANOTHEB STANDPOINT. 


171 


But she dresses as prettily as any lady I know, and 
is '"pure womanly.” I never know where she finds 
time to live her stories: she is always in a rush of 
work. 

She knitted on as composedly as if she were talk- 
ing about the most every-day things ; perhaps it was 
an every-day thing to her. It was like church to 
me ; so much so, that for one instant it gave me a 
shiver to see her knitting. 

I had to bring myself back to the pretty things in 
the room and Elizabeth’s voice. It comforted me to 
come back to the real life ; the knitting, the pretty 
room and Elizabeth’s voice were the real things in 
my life; what Leah talked and lived was unreal, 
and as far off as Heaven itself — to me. But I sup- 
pose Elizabeth feels and understands. 

There was nothing near to me but myself. I was 
never surprised at Elizabeth’s deep questions. I sus- 
pected that her thoughts and experiences were 
deeper than I knew, and some day or night after we 
had gone to bed, she would tell me her secret. 

“I think it is dreadfully hard, too hard to tell 
things to people next to you ; people who know how 
silly and selfish you are, and quick tempered and 


172 


TIIBEE-ANB-TWENTY, 


censorious. I can no more talk to people about deep- 
down things than I can fly over their heads/’ she 
said with that ripple of a laugh that always be- 
witched me. 

“ Perhaps talking is the least of it,” suggested 
Leah, whose talking is certainly the least of her. 

“ It is the hardest of it,” persisted Elizabeth. “ I 
think I was born to act in a pantomime. I can do 
things enough when I am not ashamed of being 
good. I believed I am more ashamed of being good 
than of anything else.” 

Then how we laughed. 

We were in Leah’s chamber, the pleasant second- 
floor back room ; her mother, my dear old auntie, was 
asleep on the bed in the hall bedroom into which 
Leah’s room opened: these two rooms were their 
home ; when Elizabeth and I came the landlady gave 
us a bit of a room at the top of the house. 

The hickory Are was Leah’s one luxury, and that 
luxury was for her mother’s sake, who was country 
born and loved the country and open wood fires. 

The thing that troubles me,” I said, and some- 
thing was always troubling me, “ is that the woman 
you told us about was let to be deceived. I did not 


ANOTHEB STANDPOINT, 


173 


know that people who hated a lie were allowed to 
believe a lie, and live in it. You make me afraid of 
my life, Leah.” 

That’s like you, Much-Afraid,” laughed Elizabeth. 

“Some time we will have a talk about that,” 
promised Leah ; “ we must be sure first that we love 
the truth, even the truth that hurts ; every nook 
and cranny of my mind is packed with stories to 
tell you girls.” 

“ I wish Pheann could come too,” I sighed. “ She 
doesn’t write to me, and my letters are full of ques- 
tions I want answered. I asked her to let me go 
and stay a month ; she never would go home vaca- 
tions with me, and she never asked me to go home 
with her. Sometimes I am afraid she has a mystery 
in her life. 

“But you like mysteries, you romantic thing,” 
said Elizabeth. 

“Not the kind that could come between us,” I 
said with a heart-ache. 

“ Cousin Leah, will you find a big house and take 
us girls in, and have a boarding-Aome instead of a 
boarding-school, and go on where school leaves off ? ” 

“ As if you were our mother,” I persuaded. 


174 


THBEE-ANB-TWENTY, 


'‘Our elder sister/’ corrected Elizabeth, noticing 
as I did the color that came so quickly to Leah’s 
dark cheek. 

Elizabeth has no mother, brother or sister, and her 
father is engaged to be married to a lady she has 
always disliked. My mother was everything in the 
world to me. I fear I change tenses in a most 
bewildering fashion — now in the past, now in the 
present. 

“ Tell us something, now,” urged Elizabeth, who 
is a born listener. 

"Not now, for here comes Mr. Maze,” said Leah, 
as we heard his halting step and nervous cough on 
the stairs. 

" He is one of her girls,” whispered Elizabeth, as 
Leah arose and pushed aside the portiere. I like 
her eyes when she allows them to rest an instant 
on his face : for some reason she is so sorry for him. 
I can imagine her face, her eyes especially, painted 
as compassion, divine compassion. Elizabeth despises 
him as much as ever; sometimes she is positively 
rude to him. She says he has no right to be at 
once a promise and a failure, that his lips are con- 
tinually contradicting his eyes. She says such 


ANOTHER STANDPOINT, 


175 


things to me: she never talks about him when 
Leah is listening. As soon as he entered she was 
uneasy until she found a book and lost all thought 
of him in it. My writing-tablet was at hand, and I 
wrote to Pheann, while Gilbert Maze rested in the 
most comfortable chair in the room. He will take 
the most comfortable chair, and he has such a lazy 
appearance of resting. As if he ever did anything 
to get tired, Elizabeth said once in great indignation. 

But she dropped her book, keeping her finger in 
it to mark the page, when cousin Leah told us a 
most remarkable thing that happened to Mr. 
Leavenworth, who called yesterday. Both of us 
girls were out. She said when he was in college — 
no, the Seminary, studying to be a minister, he was 
very poor — it was the last day, his trunk was 
packed, and he had no money to pay the express- 
man, and he kneeled down and told God about it.” 
The next mail brought a twenty-dollar bill in a 
type-written letter, saying the writer, wishing to help 
a student, had looked over a list of names and chosen 
his name. If he were not in need he would oblige 
the writer by passing it on. 

Mr. Maze looked unsympathetic; Elizabeth was 
indignant with him as usual. 


176 


THREE- A ND- T WEN T F. 


XIII. 

UP THE LANE. 

“ God keeps a school for his children here on earth ; and 
one of his best teachers is named Disappointment.” 

— CUYLEE. 

Half an hour after supper, a week after she came 
home from boarding-school, Pheann walked with her 
quick-tempered step through the sitting-room and 
appeared in the kitchen doorway ; to your eyes and 
mine she would have been simply a girl in a becom- 
ing dress with a baffled look in her eyes, half expect- 
ant, half disappointed; to the eyes of her mother 
stationed at the kitchen sink, washing the pile of 
supper-dishes, the girl was a vision of beauty, sweet- 
ness, and radiance such as this old world crowded 
with girls had never seen before. 

How different from every other girl in the whole 
world of girlhood; such a bewitching daughter for 
a rough, tough, hard-working, tired old mother ; the 


UP THE LANE, 


177 


last rose-bud on a withered wind-blown bush. Phe- 
ann’s mother had many fancies that she did not 
speak. The girl stood thoughtful, with a fretted 
spirit in her eyes as she watched the motions of her 
mother’s busy hands and glanced about the kitchen 
at the suggestion of labor still to be done. It was 
Friday, and that meant extra work to prepare for 
Saturday’s baking; there was the usual number of 
milk-pans to be skimmed beside, then all the pans 
must be washed, and scalded with boiling water, per- 
haps chips must be picked up to revive the low fire, 
and there stood that horrid blue churn with butter- 
milk in it to be emptied, and washed with cold water 
and hot — bread to be mixed, the table set for break- 
fast — and what else ? Something must be queer 
about her mother’s kitchen, for the work was never 
done. She was slow, she was very slow. Her hands 
were quick. 

Last Friday night her mother remarked, in a tone 
of satisfaction that was irritating, ‘'Now you are 
through school and I have you to share the work, I 
can always go to prayer-meeting.” 

She did share the work last Friday night, and her 
mother went to prayer-meeting. But she rebelled 


178 


THREE--AND-TWENTT. 


from head to foot, and decided that she would rather 
go away from home and earn her own living than to 
be compelled to do it again. Her mother was so slow, 
and to work with her she had to be slow, just a 
step behind. 

“Now just wait a second, Pheann,” had come to 
be her mother’s oftenest repeated household word. 

“ Where are you going, dear ? ” her mother asked 
with an inflection of something in her tone that Phe- 
ann resented. 

She paused in scraping the saucepan in which 
the milk had been boiled for Pheann’s supper. 

Boiled milk was one of Pheann’s luxuries and her 
mother knew it. 

“ Anywhere to be out in the sunset. In the city 
I had almost forgotten that sunsets were still in 
fashion. Do you need me — for anything?” she 
asked, discouragingly. 

“ Oh, no,” with a touch of something that Pheann 
did not care to interpret, “ run away and be happy 
with your sunsets.” 

She was happy with her sunset at the head of the 
lane ; then the twilight came and lingered long, the 
girl was wrapped in it. A step sounded on the log 


VP THE LANE, 


179 


bridge behind her, a step she had known all her 
life ; but Pheann did not like things she had known 
all her life. 

Her hands were lifted and rested on the topmost 
bar of the gate ; her head was bent so low that her 
forehead touched her hands. She was miserable to- 
night, out of place, homesick ; she felt that she did 
not know where her home was. 

She had told the girls she was ''going home.” 
But she had not come home. One was never home- 
sick at home. 

She wore no hat; the eyes behind her saw a 
bowed, dark head, with soft rings of hair on the neck 
above the pink satin band around her throat. 

The pink and the satin seemed a part of Pheann. 
There were tears on the eyelashes hidden under the 
veil of the twilight; her cheeks were flushed and 
moist with tears that she dared not wipe away under 
the sharpness of her cousin Gilbert’s eyes. 

Her latest thought had been bitterest of all : had 
she come home to stay and become like her mother 
and never know any pther life ? — would she have to 
grow more and more like her every day, and not care 
for her own dreams ? Must her own life be all for 


180 


THREE-AND-TWENTT. 


herself? Must every beautiful thought and every 
beautiful thing be crushed ? It would be easier to die. 
But she did not want to die. 

‘‘The meadow is damp. See, the mist is rising. 
Your poetry will get limp. Take it to the house and 
dry it by the kitchen fire.” 

She wished she might dry her cheeks by the 
kitchen fire; those deep-set, twinkling eyes of his 
never missed anything ; certainly not any naughti- 
ness of her own. 

“ What rhymes with girl, and fantasy, and moods, 
and ideals, and twilight, and gate ? ” he asked in his 
sarcastic voice. 

“Hate,” she flashed, facing him with quivering 
defiance. 

“No; you mean fatej* 

“ It will do no good to warm my fate by the kitchen 
fire. The kitchen fire will burn it up.” 

“Not if your mother gathers the chips, as I met 
her just now.” 

“That is just what I don’t want — what I ran 
away from — my mother’s chips. I think it is wait 
that rhymes with gate,” she exclaimed with emphasis. 

“ I believe in waiting — the active kind.” 


UP THE LANE. 


181 


She had heard this voice all her life ; she had 
never thought that there was strength in it, a rug- 
ged kind of sweetness despite the fact that Gilbert 
Maze was considered an invalid, and, by himself, as 
a cripple. 

'' Not in the moping kind,” she laughed. 

'‘When I wait — ” 

" I thought you had everything, with nothing to 
wait for,” she interrupted, petulantly. 

"I have everything that I have not — to wait 
for.” 

As she stepped forward to walk down the lane he 
stood beside her; Pheann was tall among the girls; 
Gilbert Maze was not tall as he stood beside her, he 
was exactly her height as he stood with his hat on, 
and she with her hat off ; he limped slightly, and 
walked with a cane. 

When she told him that he had everything, did 
she forget, could she forget, he wondered, his lame- 
ness, his weak spine, his cough; he was bent, he 
told himself, like an old man, he was study-worn, he 
was life-weary ; his one dread had come upon him ; 
the dread that life would lose its freshness, its enthu- 
siasm, its youngness. 


182 


THBEE-AND-TWENTY. 


How old he felt, how old he was beside this rose- 
bud of a girl. He had never felt so old with Leah. 
But he was old; there was no hiding it; he was 
ashamed of his age, perhaps, but then was he not 
ashamed of everything that touched himself and his 
unsatisfied life ? He remembered, taking the comfort 
of it that Victor Hugo said that he would rather be 
fifty than forty years of age, because forty is the old 
age of youth while fifty is the youth of old age. An- 
other youth. Why, he was as young as Pheann. 
Younger than Leah, because she was entering upon 
the old age of youth. 

‘'You have money,'' said Pheann. “You can 
build a beautiful house and fill it with beautiful 
things — my house shuts me in like a prison ; it is so 
small, so dark, so full of musty things, there's no 
room for my life in it. There's only room for mother 
and her life ; she fills it full, and is satisfied. And 
she wants me to be satisfied and stay. If my body 
stays my soul will fly away. I cannot endure it." 

“Then don't endure," he answered abruptly, and 
without sympathy. 

“ You can have ideals because there is hope of your 
finding them," she continued with girlish plaintive- 


ness. 


UP THE LANE. 


183 


“ IVe had ideals all my life without finding them.” 

“ I think that may be your own fault,” she said 
with one of her flashes of decision. 

“ We were talking of facts, not of faults.” 

“ When you talk to me I thought it was always 
of faults,” she answered, demurely. 

He laughed at her quickness; no one amused 
him like Pheann. 

^'If I had what you have I should have every- 
thing,” he remarked, after a pause, during which 
they walked slowly down the lane toward the path 
that led through the wood. 

“ Tell me what I have. That night I came home 
I told myself over and over that I had nothing, that 
I had left everything behind. You have all I want.” 

‘‘How comical — when you have all I want. 
Would you like my years, and my bent shoulders, 
and my limping foot — ” 

“I never think of them; I always forget. I 
should never think if you did not intrude them 
upon me. And I would love to be old. Then I 
should know what the world has for me. Now I 
must wait without hoping.” 

“But now you have the fun of discovering. I 
have discovered, and it isn’t fun.” 


184 


THREE-AND-TWENTY. 


'' Mine has not begun in fun, if it began the night 
I came home. I haven’t dared write to Sarah, my 
precious old Sarah — with her ring on my finger, 
and my promise never to forget her cutting me in 
two ; I wouldn’t dare let her come here : she would 
say I had deceived her ; I never described my home 
to her, I never talked about my mother. I talked 
about you and your home and let her think that was 
the life I was accustomed to. She talked about her 
mother, and I kept dead silence about mine. Before 
I left home I always directed envelopes for mother to 
myself, so that the girls never saw her writing — I 
was ashamed even of that. I consume with shame ; 
it burns me up. And, then, I am ashamed of myself, 
and that burns hottest of all. Oh, how I die with 
homesickness for the classes, and the girls, and the 
talks, and the plans, and the walks, and the new to- 
morrow. There was always a new to-morrow. My 
mother is so different — oh, she is so different from 
me,” she burst out with a little, choking sob. '' I never 
can be like her — I don’t want to be like her, and 
be satisfied with her work and her ideas — and, she 
has no to-morrow different from to-day.” 

“ I understand that,” he answered ; '' the particu- 


UP THE LANE, 


185 


lar ideas, and connections of ideas formed, the intel- 
lectual habits fixed,'’ he continued quoting from 
his latest reading, ' the peculiar coloring of the feel- 
ings, and the special lines of the conduct, will all be 
determined by the character of the surroundings/ 
She threw you out into surroundings as different from 
her own as life in another world.” 

“ And now she expects me to come home and be 
good,” with another burst of sobs ; '' I don't know how 
to be good in her way ; I think I do not even want 
to be good in her way.” 

“ Are you even sure that you want to be good in 
anybody's way ? ” 

''No,” with a return of her defiant mood ; "I want 
to be happy; I don't want to be good — if it will in- 
terfere.” 

"The amount of happiness you are possessed of 
at this moment does not impress me by its magni- 
tude” 

" No ; I'm trying to be good just now,” she laughed, 
in her changing mood ; " I am hurrying home to the 
kitchen fire.” 

"0, Pheann, Pheann,” he exclaimed in despair, 
taking both her hands into his own and examining 


186 


THBEE-ANB-T WENTY, 


with a critical eye the rounded wrists, the pink fin- 
ger-tips, and pretty finger-nails. You are a problem. 
If I could buy you and own you, I should not know 
what to do with you. You are so inconsequent.” 

What do you mean by that ? ” she demanded, 
snatching her hands away from his light hold. 

‘"A sequence is something that follows ; a con- 
sequence something that follows together; and in- 
consequent is something that does not follow to- 
gether. You are yourself, and nothing comes of it.'’ 

“Nothing to you,” she retorted rudely ; “too much 
is coming to me. That’s the difficulty. I could get 
along with half of myself.’’ 

“Which half?” 

“The reasonable half,” she admitted frankly. 

“ Is there nothing in heaven or earth for you to 
be concerned with but yourself ? ” he asked, roughly. 
“What is your mother doing to-night ? ” 

“I pity her if she is not having a happier time 
than I am,” she retorted with laughing indignation. 

“ And you are thinking poetry and despair, and 
moaning over a gate.” 

“ Don’t blame the poor gate,” she said, dropping 
her eyes with a flash of merriment in them. 


UP THE LANE, 


187 


“ Good things are reached to us through our own 
hands/’ he said, in reply to something she had not 
said, “ not through stretching them out in greediness 
— not pretty toys of hands that seem fitted only to 
adorn one’s own beauty ; but through hands that 
toil for others, that seek good things for others ; 
hands with brains behind them and a heart.” 

Pheann said, Nonsense,” with a child’s petulance. 
She loved her hands. Had not Sarah Field told 
her they were the prettiest hands in the world ? 

Hoping that he might pass on and thus, rid her- 
self of further '' lecture,” Pheann turned and plucked 
a wild rose that grew near the fence ; but he paused, 
also, and she stooped and reached through the bars 
to catch at the wild rose hedge that ran along the 
dried channel of the brook down to the edge of the 
road. 

‘‘You do not give me your attention,” he re- 
marked. 

“ Have you forgotten,” giving a twitch at a rose- 
stem, “that a young crab, seized by a big, strong, 
old crab, will actually continue its meal while the 
old crab is devouring him ? ” 

His eyes twinkled behind her head. “Pheann,” 


188 


THBEE-ANB-TWENTY, 


he said, not offering to pull the roses for her, ‘‘ what 
are you looking forward to ? ” 

'' The end of the lane,” she answered, seriously. 

Not to toiling or spinning ? ” 

"No — only to pulling roses with thorns.” 

" And hurting your fingers ? ” 

" I may as well if I always have to pull my own 
roses. I do not look forward to being like my 
mother and grandmother — what girl does ?” 

Then with a pang Pheann remembered the words 
of Sarah Field: "I would be perfectly satisfied if I 
might be the woman my mother is.” 

" My grandmother did not want me to be like her- 
self ; it was her own disappointment in life that made 
me. She told mother, that week she died, to sell that 
down-town lot and send me to boarding school ; and 
the money sent me three years, from fourteen to seven- 
teen. How can I help it that that or coming home 
has spoiled all my life ? ” she asked, with something 
more in her tone than the irritation of the thorn in 
her finger. " I got these roses with my own hands 
— how Sarah would love them, she loves wild 
things — and I got the thorn. Is the thorn always 
probable ? ” 


UP THE LANE, 


189 


‘‘ With roses.” 

‘‘ But it is roses I want.” 

‘‘Will you give me one ? ” 

“ I will give you the thorn,” she promised gravely, 
laying in the palm of his extended hand the thorn 
she had extracted with her own thumb and finger. 
“ Why do these buds tell us a lie ? ” she ran on, 
indignantly. “It will break my heart if Nature 
tells me a lie. They promise so much more than 
the full bloom gives to us.” 

“ They do not tell you a lie, if you have had ex- 
perience — with roses. But here we are at the end 
of the lane. You have one happiness that you 
looked forward to. May you have another.” 

“ I am going through the wood. I like that way 
better,” she said. 

“ So do I, usually. But I’ll take the way the cows 
do. Good night.” 

The narrow way through the wood was her de- 
light. Did she not love everything about her home, 
excepting the house and her mother’s ways ? The 
two things, alas, that might never be changed. 

Through the narrow foot-path she went out into 
the stony pasture that sloped down to the house. 


190 


TEREE-AND-TWENTY. 


Her mother stood in the kitchen doorway watching. 
When was she not watching and listening for 
Pheann ? 

Where is Gilbert ? ” she inquired, regarding 
her with love in her eyes. 

“He went the other way. We got tired of each 
other. We always do. He was cross because I 
said these buds told me a lie.” 

“They are too pretty to tell a lie. Little dears,” 
ejaculated her mother fondly as Pheann held the 
bunch of bloom and bud up to the face whose bud 
and bloom had faded years ago. “ How could they 
tell you a lie ? ” 

“Because they do not grow up, or grow old as 
beautiful as they promise.” 

“ But it is the old roses that make the air sweet 
and make that hedge such a sight. The buds 
couldn't do all that." 

“ So they couldn't," declared Pheann ; “ mother, 
you went down to the heart of the matter." 

“ And there are always buds for somebody,” said 
Pheann's mother, “ the buds keep coming. Bless 
them.” 

“ Mother," in a fit of contrition, “ you didn’t go to 


UP the lane. 


191 


prayer-meeting/’ Prayer-meeting was one of her 
mother’s luxuries, and Pheann knew it. 

Pheann, you didn’t ask cousin Gilbert to come 

in.” 

“No, I forgot it.” 

“ He is worth remembering.” 

“ Then somebody will remember him. Is it too 
late for you to go to prayer-meeting ? ” 

“Not too late, if you will go with me.” 

“I hate prayer-meetings,” said Pheann with a 
burst of impatience. 

“ Pheann, that’s wicked.” 

“Then I am wicked. I used to go because you 
said I must. But I was frightened when somebody 
said frightful things. They never helped me to be 
good. Do they help you ? ” 

“ Yes, when I am humble and prayerful enough 
to be helped,” replied her mother meekly. 

“ Clearly, I am not that,” said Pheann. 

“I am too tired to go,” her mother went on, 
complainingly. “ I was out of bed before five this 
morning, and I’ve been trotting about every minute 
since ; I haven’t even taken time for a nap in the 
rocking-chair. I’ve been faint and exhausted like 


192 


THBEE-ANB-TWENTT. 


all day because I haven't any appetite and can't 
eat anything." 

The appeal for sympathy in the tone Pheann 
determined not to notice. Was it her fault if her 
mother did not stop to rest all day long ? Could she 
help it if she had no appetite and could not eat ? 
Every night she had to bear this same complaint 
of weariness and lack of appetite. She wished that 
her mother had gone to prayer-meeting. 

The church had been built in front of the house, 
with the width of a narrow field between ; the field 
was smooth and green, not fenced in. She had told 
the girls her grandfather had built a church on the 
lawn. 

“ They are singing now. It isn't too late," she 
suggested, as the familiar strains of '' Nearer to Thee " 
was wafted to them through the moist night-air. 

But you will not go." 

‘‘I don't want to go. I never liked even that 
Sunday-School when I was a little girl." 

“ 0, Pheann, and I've so counted on your coming 
home to go to church with me — I love that church, 
it is the apple of my eye — and I thought you 
would teach in Sunday-School, and join the church 
some day." 


UP THE LANE. 


193 


With the roses in her hand, Pheann pushed past 
her mother in the narrow doorway ; there was no 
lamp lighted in the sitting-room ; the singing from 
the church sounded wild and rude to Pheann’s 
boarding-school and city-church-bred ears ; she 
rushed up stairs, tossed her roses across the room, 
and — what do discouraged girls do all alone in the 
dark, I wonder ? 

And what do discouraged mothers do all alone 
in the dark, I wonder ? 

Kesting for the first time that day in her rocking- 
chair, in the sitting-room, Pheann’s mother wept 
slow, hard, disappointed tears. Her years of sacri- 
fice and hope, of planning and prayers, of love that 
tugged at her heart with all its mother weight, had 
ended in this : Pheann hated the old house and its 
homely, work-a-day ways, she hated the church her 
grandfather built the last year of his life, the very year 
Pheann was born ; by and by she would be ashamed of 
her mother — perhaps “ hate ” her with all the rest. 

Gilbert Maze, walking slowly along the pavement 
to his handsome residence a mile down the avenue, 
was thinking: he was wondering if he did know 
what to do with Pheann. Poor little Phebe Ann, 


194 


TIIBEE-ANB-TWENTY. 


it was hard, harder than she knew herself. That one- 
story-and-a-half house, with its narrow door in the 
center, one half the house stone, and roughly white- 
washed, the other half unpainted wood ; within, low 
ceilings, dingy furniture, small-paned windows ; no 
frolic, no music, no study, no girl-life, nothing but 
her mother, whom she did not know how to love, and 
failing in love, failing therefore in understanding. 
Would it be a good thing — would it be the best 
thing to build Pheann a house up the hill on the 
other avenue, a handsome house, with all the modern 
improvements, and give it to her for her own home 
— when she deserved it ? He might watch her 
through the year, a winter and a summer, and dis- 
cover if she deserved it. The building would give 
him a new thing to do — if it were not to be for 
Pheann he could readily sell it and make money. 
He did not often make money.” 

Her grandfather’s few remaining acres were not 
to be sold until the death of Pheann’s mother; the 
old man had willed it so, determined that the en- 
croaching city should not swallow up that house he 
was born in as long as his daughter lived. Pheann’s 
mother had' the house and church: what more could 
she desire of life ? 


UP THE LANE, 


195 


His little granddaughter “ Pheann would go on 
in the old way and be happy with the house and 
church. 

Within one block of the house up the hill ran the 
horse-cars, the avenue was lighted by gas ; within 
two blocks of the church the street was lighted by 
electricity, and the electric cars had, within a month, 
made their way through. 

Pheann’s home was in the country, within a block 
or two of the city. 

But Pheann’s house should be in the city, if she 
ever deserved it, he considered with a twinkle. The 
old man was his grandfather, too ; Pheann was his 
cousin, why should he not build the girl a house ? 
What other thing had he to do to help him grow 
young? He would tell Leah; Leah always knew 
what girls liked ; even now, with silver thickening 
in her hair, she was like a girl herself ; even now 
he was often reminded of the thirteen-year-old girl 
who sped along so fast that stormy, winter twilight. 

She would choose the plan, and furnish the house. 
He would never furnish a house for Leah. It would 
be next best to build a house for Pheann. 

Next best was good drill for him, whose life was 
all endurance. 


196 


THREE-AND-TWENTY. 


XIV. 

“ BEHAVING.” 

“ I find the doing of the will of God leaves no time for dis- 
puting about his plans.” 

— Geokge Macdonald. 

‘‘Who waits until the wind shall silent keep, 

Will never find the ready hour to sow; 

Who watcheth clouds will have no time to reap.” 

— Helen Hunt Jackson. 

The breakfast dishes were washed, the sitting- 
room swept and dusted, the morning work up-stairs 
done in neatest fashion, and Pheann stood at the 
kitchen table peeling potatoes for the twelve o’clock 
dinner. 

Of all drudgery peeling potatoes was the worst, 
and dainty, boarding-school Pheann was peeling po- 
tatoes. 

It was two weeks since she had decided all alone 
by herself in the dark that she would behave.” 
She had no journal to pour herself out in, like Sarah 


behaving: 


197 


Field : she had poured herself out in hours of tears, a 
penitent little prayer for help to do and to bear, and 
the strong resolve to begin all over again and be as 
good to her mother as she knew how. 

“ Why, Pheann !” Gilbert Maze was moved into 
exclaiming as he entered at the kitchen door. 

“Pm behaving,'’ retorted Pheann in reply to his 
note of astonishment. 

“ But your fingers will be spoiled." 

“ I know it," she acknowledged, regarding her 
forefinger ruefully. ‘‘ I thought I would spoil them 
the first thing I did, and then I wouldn’t care so 
much.” 

“ ‘ In the mud and scum of things 

There always, always something sings,’ ” 

he quoted, provokingly. Where is your mother ? I 
want her opinion on a building-lot of mine.” 

‘"I don't know. I wish I did. She never did 
anything like this before. I had a tantrum at the 
breakfast table — I often do,” she admitted, watching 
the eyes under his heavy brows ; “ this time it was 
because she proposed that Sarah Field should come 
to make me a visit. I cried and blustered and said 
ugly things, as I always do when I am mad, and said 


198 


TIIUEE-ANB-TWENTY, 


she should never come. — She lives in Philadelphia, 
in such style, and is so fastidious and elegant: I 
said I should die of shame if she should see this 
house. And mother said — she cried a little : 'And 
your mother, too/ and rose and went out, through 
the kitchen I think ; only I thought I heard her up- 
stairs afterward. She always goes to the barn and 
sees to things herself — she never will trust Harry, 
and he has taken care of the place seven years ; he 
always reports progress to her, hut she will see for 
herself how everything is done, and trots around in 
old shoes and a short dress, and such a sunbonnet. 
Sarah Field wouldn’t believe I could have such a 
mother. She makes fun of everybody and every- 
thing. And I know I’d die of shame. But I needn’t 
have been so horrid. Mother thinks I am ashamed 
of her myself. I did feel so penitent after she went 
out that I spun around like a top to get things 
done to surprise her ; I’ve been so busy that I didn’t 
miss her for an hour or two. I’m afraid I was glad 
that we might live apart for a while. As soon as I 
realized how long she had been gone I searched 
everywhere and called, but not a sight or sound 
have I had of her, and it is fully two hours since she 


behaving:^ 


199 


went away. I do not like to go to any of the houses 
about ; I do not know the people ; they are all 
handsome, new houses, and the people are not neigh- 
borly — that is one reason mother is so friendly 
with Mary O’Kane, I suppose. She has so few 
friends. She is so plain the new church people do 
not take to her — and so shy, beside. I grit my 
teeth when Mary O’Kane comes and talks gossip by 
the hour and mother listens. She knows I do not 
like it. She has even read my letters to her, and I 
know Mary tells everybody.” 

Mary isn’t a common servant.” 

“ Yes, she is. What does her money do for her ? 
I wish I had it.” 

If it does nothing for her it isn’t the money, then.” 

And Pheann had always maintained that it was 
money that made all the difference. 

‘‘ How much money has she ? ” he inquired. 

A great deal for a woman who can do nothing 
better with it than live in somebody’s kitchen. One 
of her sisters is traveling in Europe this summer, 
and another keeps three servants. They married 
rich ; they had enough of their own, and gave Mary 
the legacy from Ireland. It sets my teeth on edge 


200 


THBEE-ANB-TWENTY, 


for fear mother should borrow money of her. If 
she has already — for me — I’ll run away. Sarah 
Field would never look at me again.” 

“Where is Mary now?” he inquired, regardless 
of Sarah Field. 

“Away down the avenue in one of those hand- 
some houses ; she is cook. She had two hundred 
dollars in her pocket the last time she was here, 
interest on a mortgage. She is such a frowsy, 
wrinkled faced, loud-talking thing ; I hate to have 
her in the house.” 

“ Your mother would not have an errand to her ? ” 
he asked, with quick suspicion. 

“ She did not say so. But she would not tell me 
if she had. I don’t deserve her confidence.” 

Would she mortgage the place to Mary O’Kane 
to make life easier for Pheann? shot through the 
mind of Gilbert Maze as he watched the fingers 
nervously peeling potatoes. 

Had this latest outburst goaded her into such 
rashness ? 

“ She would not go down town on an errand,” 
he suggested. 

“ She always sends me. Besides we have no errand. 


behaving: 


201 


We have no money to spend — like Mary O’Kane,” 
she replied with a voice too young for bitterness. 

“ Have you been in the wood and lane — ” 

“ Harry has been everywhere. I told him not to 
call to bring the town about our ears, but to look 
faithfully.” 

“ Does she ever go into the hay-loft ? ” 

“She goes everywhere. She prowls. I feel as if 
she were disappointed in me and had run away to 
rid herself of me.” 

“There’s more danger of your running away to 
rid yourself of her,” he said, dryly. 

“ I have run away every day since I came home — 
in my heart. I could never forgive myself if she 
could know my heart.” 

“ Where haven't you looked ? ” 

“ I’m so silly I’ve even looked in the closets ; and 
you will laugh — but I looked under her bed.” 

“ Not down the sink spout ? ” 

His laugh relieved the tension of her nerves; 
she laughed with tears starting. Cousin Gilbert 
loved her mother; his presence was more than 
sympathy, it was strength. She was glad somebody 
loved her mother. She washed her hands, unmind- 


202 


THREE-ANB-TWENTT. 


ful of the stains upon thumb and forefinger, and 
then stood waiting like a naughty, repentant child, 
to he told what to do next. 

“We’ll ransack the premises again; you have 
been up garret and down cellar ? ” 

“I did that as soon as I missed her. She is 
always in the barn or down cellar, or up garret and 
bringing hidden things to light and making long 
conversations over them. Mary O’Kane likes that 
kind of talk.” 

“I’m glad somebody does,” said Gilbert Maze 
gravely. 

“She brought forth a pair of my baby shoes 
yesterday, and a painting of my father on ivory, and 
said I looked like him. I never saw him to re- 
member him.” 

“ This old house is a great deal to her ; her past, 
her present, her future.” 

“Yes,” said Pheann, struck with the truth for 
the first time. 

“The 'beloved samenesses,’ as Euskin has it, make 
the very beats of her heart.” 

“ Oh, dear,” groaned Pheann, in comical despair, 
“ and those same ' samenesses ’ choke the heart out of 


behaving: 


203 


me.” Then, with one of her fine, girlish impulses she 
faced him: “Tell me what to do, Gilbert, and I’ll 
do it, if it kills me.” 

“ Till you find your mother,” he answered cruelly. 

“If you believe that of me it isn’t worth your 
while to take the trouble to answer me.” 

“I think so myself. To be frank, poor little 
Pheann, only you are so tall ; the only one thing for 
you to do is what your mother wants you to do.” 

“ But my heart isn’t in it,” she persisted. 

“ Oh, bother your heart,” he exclaimed impatiently. 

“It does,” she laughed. 

“ Then do it, heart or no heart. I’m tired of this 
bosh about heart. Do what you know to be right 
and leave your heart alone, and it will come home 
dragging its tail behind it. Now, let’s have another 
search, and if we don’t find her I’ll go and interview 
Miss O’Kane. Had she any headache, or dizziness 
this morning ? ” 

“ She got up with a headache,” Pheann confessed. 
“ I’ll go over the house, and you go to the barn. 
No; you come with me.” 

Pheann was shivering with the terror of finding 
her mother faint or dead ; had not Elizabeth Dare 


204 


THUEE-ANB-T WENTY, 


found her mother — but God was so good he would 
not let such a dreadful thing happen to her, even if 
she were so bad. 

Everywhere through the small, old house they 
went together ; the low garret, that storehouse of 
treasure ; the tiny storeroom, hung full of clothing 
and packed full of boxes ; Harry’s room with its 
home-spun comfort ; her mother’s own room, a moth- 
erly sort of room that went to Gilbert’s heart, a 
place of prayer and weeping, he knew, of heart-aches 
that it would take half a century of life for this girl 
to understand, the room where this girl herself was 
born ; the Daily Light was kept open on the bureau 
by a smaller book, one of the few signs of her devo- 
tional, undemonstrative life; and then Pheann’s 
chamber, a bare room for a nineteenth-century girl’s 
room, with few of the pretty touches that every girl 
in every age has loved, bare, somewhat rough, un- 
finished like the girl herself. But he would not 
change it, any more than he dared change the girl’s 
life — not until she began to change it herself. Leah 
would know about that. The plot was thickening 
for the study-worn, world-weary old bachelor. Had 
he gone to sleep, and grown old, and awakened to 


behaving: 


205 


find himself with a little girl ? He would like to 
have a little girl like this tall girl, Pheann. 

Then down stairs, the cheerless spare room, the 
grim parlor with all the fashions of the youth of 
Pheann’s mother, the sitting-room, the kitchen, the 
dairy, the cellar. 

She had not fainted, she was not dead — any-’ 
where in the house. 

“ Mother ! Mother ! ” called Pheann with the cry 
of a lost child. 

There’s the barn,” suggested Gilbert, but only 
half hopefully. ''Have you looked to see if her 
street-dress and bonnet are gone ? Perhaps it will 
be well to find Mary O’Kane.” 

Pheann flew up stairs to the clothes-room, return- 
ing breathless to say the dress and bonnet were 
there. She had not gone far away. 

"Unless she has wandered off — and don’t know 
— with her headache,” she half sobbed. 

" Miss Pheann, Miss Pheann,” shouted Harry from 
somewhere. "I’ve found her; she’s on the barn 
floor; she’s as white as a sheet and says it’s her 
back.” 

Again Pheann flew. Gilbert limped behind her at 


206 


THBEE-ANB-TWENTY. 


his best speed. He found Pheann sitting on the 
barn floor with her mother’s head in her lap ; happy 
tears were streaming down Pheann’s face. 

It isn’t anything very bad,” said Pheann’s mother, 
“ only I guess I fainted or something.” 

“ Harry, go and take down my hammock,” com- 
manded Pheann ; '' we will lift her in, she is such a 
little thing that we can carry her easily.” 

While the two men brought their precious burden 
with slow steps to the house, Pheann made comfort- 
able the bed in the cheerless spare room. Harry 
was sent for Dr. Vreeland, and Gilbert Maze went 
himself to call upon Miss O’Kane to see if she were 
at liberty to be housekeeper while Pheann was her 
mother’s nurse. 

Pheann must be with her mother. No '' trained 
nurse ” in this case, Gilbert told her. 

Twenty-four hours after her mother had been 
made comfortable, Pheann ventured to ask her how 
the accident happened. 

''I don’t remember. I was after something — I 
had been off by myself awhile to collect my thoughts 
— something happened to confuse me ; I’m ’most an 
old woman, Pheann, hard work and all ; you came 


'' BEIIA VING. 


207 


when I was forty-five, that makes me — but no mat- 
ter ; I saw a wheel going around in the air, and I fell 
down ; it went round and round ; perhaps I was on 
the ladder, I had heard a hen cackle up there. I 
wasn’t long on the floor ; it didn’t seem long.” 

'' It wasn’t long to you,” sobbed Pheann ; “ it was a 
lifetime to me. Mother what makes me ? ” she asked, 
furious with her making. 

What makes you what ? ” her mother questioned, 
anxiously. 

"'Not whaty' she laughed, for Pheann could always 
laugh, hut me ; so different from you, or anybody 
good.” 

I suppose it is your mother, and grandmother, 
and things,” was the lucid exposition of heredity. 

“ Pheann,” rebuked her cousin, entering at the 
open door, remember dragging its tail behind it, 
and don’t ask questions.” 

“ Then I’ll go and make toast-water,” she replied 
meekly. 

Mary O’Kane toasted the bread a delicious brown 
while the nurse stood looking on. Mary talked 
while she toasted ; she talked while she did every- 
thing. 


208 


THBEE-AND-TWENTY. 


“ Your poor mother has come to a resting place. 
Some folks have to get most killed to get rested.” 

She is not wholly resting. She is anxious,” re- 
plied Pheann. 

“ She has no call to be anxious about me, or any- 
thing else. ThaPs all settled and right. I never 
mind if I do not get my interest regular when I am 
sure of the principal.” 

Pheann's blood boiled, or ran cold ; it did not 
matter which — then, her mother had borrowed 
money of this serving woman to pay the boarding- 
school bills, the dressmaker’s bills, and her small al- 
lowance of spending money. The girl trembled with 
anger from head to foot. 

“You see,” looking at the toast affectionately, 
“ that I never had education or anything but work. 
I was the oldest. Mother died first, and then father. 
We couldn’t sell anything until my youngest brother 
came of age. Somebody had to work, and I worked. 
I liked work. I was born liking work. Sometimes 
I like money best, and sometimes work best. I 
could live without money, but I couldn’t live with- 
out work. I’ve tried boarding, I’ve tried keeping 
house in two rooms, but nothing makes me happy 


'' BEHAVING, 


209 


but somebody's kitchen. It's all habit, they say. 
The money from Ireland came too late to change 
me. I'd work just as I'm doing now if your mother 
never paid me a cent. I was here in this kitchen 
the day you were born. I was here when your 
mother lost her three boys before you were born. 
Your mother is my best friend. I'd toast bread for 
her if I burnt my fingers off. I'm not a poor woman, 
and I wasn't Irish born, and I know the Bible bet- 
ter than most folks, even if I never go to church. 
I've lived in ministers' families, as I needn't tell you 
who know all my history." 

''Thank you. That toast is just right,” Pheann 
answered faint-heartedly. 

" Of course it is. That's the way I do things. 
You always do that way when you work for love in- 
stead of money. Some folks can't afford to work 
for love, and some folks can. My month was up 
the very hour Mr. Gilbert Maze came for me. And 
I've begun now with no month about it.” 

" Excuse me, but there is a month about it,” said 
Pheann's proud lips. 

" That's between your mother and me, and, if you 
will excuse me I'll finish this toast-water. You stay 
with your mother; I'll do all the rest.” 


210 


THREE-ANB-TWENTY. 


Pheann was glad to stay with her mother, if for 
no other reason than to escape Mary O’Kane — 
Mary OKane, whose money had sent her that last 
year to boarding-school. 

^ Oh, how could her mother love her so cruelly as 
to let such a thing be ? 

Would Sarah Field ever speak to her again? 

Was she deceiving Sarah Field not to tell her all 
the truth ? 

"'Your mother wants you,” said her cousin Gil- 
bert’s voice breaking in on her misery. 

''Yes,” said Pheann. But she said it ungra- 
ciously. 

Her mother missed her, and moaned for her if 
she left her alone half an hour ; her face would lose 
its fretted lines, and her lips settle into restfulness 
as soon as she heard the light tread ; the unconscious 
greeting smote Pheann ; she shyly bent over and 
kissed her lips. She had not kissed her since that 
homesick kiss she gave her the day she came home 
from boarding-school ; it was not easy for the impul- 
sive girl to kiss reserved lips, not even when she 
believed those lips would be glad. With that kiss she 
forgave her mother; with that kiss she began to love 


behaving: 


211 


her with a new love that made her heart warm. It 
was not in human nature not to feel that she had 
something to forgive ; had her mother not replied, 
when she questioned so anxiously if the money 
were holding out, meaning no other money than 
that from the sale of the down-town lot, “Yes, the 
money is holding out ? ” 

She did not say that money, but what other 
money could she ask about or know about ? 

So Pheann forgave her with a great forgiving, 
knowing it was from love of her she had done the 
cruel thing. 

She did not call it forgiveness that day, nor for 
many days ; she only knew that she had begun to 
understand and love her mother. 

The next thing was to learn how to earn the 
money to pay Mary O’Kane ; to pay her before 
Sarah Field could know about it. 

She had not answered Sarah’s latest letters, three 
of them, such dear letters : how could she when she 
was living a lie ? She was not in the home Sarah 
believed her to be — and that was not the worst of 
it. What other girl had been at school because her 
mother had borrowed money of a servant ? 


212 


THREE- AND-TWENTY. 


The days went* on in a new and very blessed way 
to the mother to whom a daughter had been born 
anew ; she thought she would be content to lie still 
all her life and be ministered to by the low-voiced, 
soft-stepping creature who was never impatient and 
never slow. 


AN UNFINISHED THOUGHT. 


213 


XV. 


AN UNFINISHED THOUGHT. 

“ Change the dream of me and mine, 

To the truth of Thee and Thine.” 

— Whittier. 

“You remember the old story of how Michael Angelo 
wore ever on his forehead, fastened in his artist’s cap, a 
lighted candle, which always shone brightly on his work, and 
kept his shadow from falling on it.” 

One day in November, the first day that Pheann’s 
mother was wheeled in her wheel-chair across the 
narrow hall into the sitting-room, Pheann went out 
for a walk. 

Gilbert asked her to go up the hill to see the house 
he was building. 

I am so glad you are building a house,*’ she said 
as they stepped off the narrow front porch. 

‘‘ Why ? ” he asked, with a quick look into the un- 
suspecting face. 

‘‘ Because it is such a splendid thing to do. To 


214 


THREE- A ED-TWENTY, 


build one more house in this world full of houses, 
and to have it express something inside of you — to 
make it like one of your thoughts.” 

This house is to he like one of my thoughts,” he 
said. 

“Don’t tell me the thought. Let me guess it.” 

“ You never will,” he laughed, with great enjoy- 
ment. 

“ Then your thought must be obscure.” 

“ It is — very obscure.” 

“ But I shall never build a house. I cannot even 
earn money enough to pay — 0, Gilbert,” with sud- 
den appeal, “ do you think you could show me how 
to earn money ? ” 

“ What does a girl like you wish to earn money 
for?” he asked, sharply. “Are you discontented 
again ? ” 

“Not again. The first fit hasn’t worn off yet. 
May I tell you a secret ? Will you be awful cross ? ” 

“ I shall be awful cross, but you may tell me just 
the same,” he answered in a relenting voice. 

Pheann drew a long breath and walked apart 
from him that she might step into the leaves thick 
upon the edge of the pavement. 


AN TiNFINISHED THOUGHT. 


215 


• The secret is that I was dreadfully ugly because 
I couldn't have the third year of school, and hand- 
some dresses like Sarah Field's, and spending money ; 
or I thought I couldn't, from something mother 
said, and I tormented her, and wouldn't eat, and 
cried, and had the worst tantrum I ever had. Then 
something seemed to happen, and mother said I 
could go back to school ; I was surprised, because I 
thought if the money were all gone it was all gone, 
and couldn't come back by magic. But it did, and 
mother told me it was all right. I thought that 
meant it was the money from the sale of the lot or 
lots that were my own, really." 

“ What else should it mean ? " he asked, quietly. 

“The shame of my life, the degradation of my 
life," she answered with slow vehemence; “that I 
browbeat my mother into borrowing money of a 
servant — into mortgaging that lot on Eoscoe 
Avenue, I suspect — that I might have another 
year at school. She never could tell me all the 
plain, whole truth, because I was so quick-tempered 
and rebellious, and would have my own way. And 
now she will never be strong again to work and 
save money, and I know the interest is on her mind, 


216 


TBEEE-AND-TWENTY. 


and the extra expense of paying Mary O'Kane — 
and having such a dreadful secret from me, because 
she thinks I will tear the roof off when I know it. 
And I would, if she hadn’t been sick,” she added, 
with quick self-condemnation. 

How did you learn it ? ” 

‘‘Mary O’Kane told me. Just as she has told 
other people, I suppose. I’m ashamed to go into 
the street for fear people will know my dress was 
bought with a servant-girl’s money.” 

“ You are a proud thing.” 

Would you like it — if you were a girl? ” 

If I had been a girl I hope I should have be- 
haved myself,” he said, relentlessly. 

'' But if you didn’t — what then ? ” 

Then I should begin all over again, and ask my 
dear cousin Gilbert Maze to help me.” 

“Dear cousin Gilbert Maze, will you help me?” 
she asked penitently, with a little happy laugh. 

“How?” 

“ By showing me how to earn money.” 

“What can you do? What has your boarding- 
school done for you ? ” 

Her eyes grew serious. Why, boarding-school 


AN UNFINISHED THOUGHT, 


217 


had done everything for her. Did she go to board- 
ing-school to learn how to earn money ? 

Where was I when this precious muss and fuss 
happened ? ” 

In Egypt.” 

“Pm always in Egypt when I should be some- 
where else/’ he said, remorsefully. 

His repentance was something like Pheann’s. 

“ But you are not in Egypt now.” 

“ No,” he said, with a devout “thank God” in his 
heart. 

“I don’t believe I learned anything to make 
money with,” Pheann began, dismally; “we girls 
didn’t think about that. Nobody seemed to have 
to think about that. I cannot teach anything — not 
even what I liked best. And I don’t know how to 
do anything but take care of mother'' 

“ Hum,” ejaculated Gilbert Maze, with eyes so 
blurred that he looked down at the leaves instead of 
into Pheann’s face. “Never you mind: I’ll take 
care of that mortgage, or money, however it was 
got. Don’t you say one word to your mother or 
Mary O’Kane about it ; if you do I’ll go to Egypt 
and stay there. And if Mary O’Kane ever says 
anything to you, I’ll send her to Egypt, that’s all.” 


218 


THUEE-AND-TWENTT. 


'' But, how can I pay you ? she questioned, troubled. 

By taking care of your mother,'’ he answered so 
sharply that she dared not say another word. 

Cousin Gilbert, I think it’s dreadfully hard to 
be a Christian,” were her next quick words. 

So I think. And Browning, and St. Paul, and 
a few of the rest of us. It’s the hardest thing I 
ever tried to do.” 

I thought it was easy for you. You scold other 
people so.” 

He laughed and would say no more about it. 

At the corner they turned and walked a block to 
the new house : from the back porch they could see 
the wild-rose hedge, or they would see it, next wild- 
rose time, Pheann said. 

“ What do you think ? ” he asked, as they stood 
in the pretty reception room. 

It is like — an unfinished thought.” 

That is just exactly what it is,” he said, satisfied. 

They walked silently home ; both seemed to be 
stirred with unfinished thoughts. 

As Pheann opened the door and stepped inside 
the hall, Gilbert abruptly questioned : “ When did 
you hear last from Sarah Field ? ” 


AN UNFINISHED THOUGHT. 


219 


“ Oh, didn't I tell you ? I haven't written since 
I came home. I couldn't. I’ve broken my promise 
to her and given her up. I couldn't tell her the 
truth ; I knew she couldn’t bear it, and I wouldn’t 
deceive her any longer.” 

''And she hasn’t written to you ? '' 

" At first she did. But she's sensitive and quick- 
tempered, and I couldn’t explain — '' said Pheann, 
rather chokingly. 

" Good-by. I’ll be in to-morrow,'' he interrupted, 
starting off hurriedly. 

Pheann laid her hat and gloves on the hall table ; 
the odor of coffee and fried potatoes were in the air ; 
in the spare room were voices : not Mary O’Kane’s 
shrill voice talking to her mother, but something 
low and sweet and jubilant, it was like — she 
pushed open the door; beside her mother’s wheel- 
chair sat Sarah Field. Pheann said afterward that 
she didn't cry, or scream, or drop dead. 

Late that night the girls talked, or, rather until 
early the next morning, falling asleep long after mid- 
night. Pheann would not listen to any explanation 
until she had told all her own story. She laughed 
and cried as she talked, but she told it all ; the 


220 


THREE-ANB-TWENTT. 


temptation was upon her to say that her cousin 
Gilbert had sent her that third year to school — 
would it not be true ? It was not true then, but 
it was true now ; it was not his money then, it was 
Mary O’Kane's that paid the bills ; but his money 
would do it now. 

Somewhere Pheann had learned, at boarding- 
school or somewhere else, that a straight line is a 
straight line, and tell the straight line she did ; she 
said she would do it if it killed her, and she did it, 
and it did not kill her — it seemed to strengthen a 
stronger, purer life within her and to open her eyes 
to see clear. Her attitude toward life was more 
reverent after this confession. And Sarah Field. 
But you should hear Pheann talk about Sarah Field. 

'' Your mother is so sweet,” she said. “ How she 
looks at you. I hope it isn’t wicked for me to say 
it, but it makes me think of ' the glory of God.’ 
And that is loving, isn’t it ? ” 

Pheann awoke drowsily the next morning to ask: 

You haven’t told me how you happened to come? ” 

'' Don’t ask me. Ask that fairy godmother of a 
cousin of yours.” 

“ And you have forgiven me, and like me just as 
well ? ” Pheann asked, dreading the reply. 


AN UNFINISHED THOUGHT. 


221 


Yes,” said Sarah Field. '' When Mr. Maze told 
me about it — he came and stayed all one evening, 
then father coaxed him to stay over night, he was 
so taken with his conversation — at first I didn't 
know how I felt about it. It was not trusting me, 
you see, that hurt me so. As if I didn't love you 
for being your own self, and couldn’t love you apart 
from a handsome home, and stylish mother ; it made 
me feel as if I had shown you such a mean part of 
me ; I wondered that you could care at all for the 
girl you thought I was.” 

0, Sarah! ” was all Pheann could ejaculate. 

But you took that attitude toward me, and I 
thought I must have behaved so. If my luxurious 
home had made me a girl like that, I hated luxury, 
and culture, and wished I had been born a clod- 
hopper, for then I might have had a right spirit 
toward effort and poverty. I was so ashamed of 
myself that I forgot I had anything to be angry 
with you about. I poured it all out to Mr. Maze, 
and he said we two girls were two too many for him.” 

I know you have forgiven me for that, too ; be- 
cause you came,” Pheann assured herself, contentedly, 
giving Sarah's head a caressing touch. 


222 


thuee-anb-twen-ty. 


"'And I know I like you better than ever because 
you turned me inside out to myself.” 

"That’s where I am all the time,” confessed 
Pheann; "and, is our poor little house so dreadful?” 

" It’s quaint, it’s picturesque ; I shall do it in 
water colors. I’m only provoked at you because 
you didn’t let me come before.” 


“ something: 


223 


XVI. , 

“ SOMETHING.” 

“I wanted something, O, so much, 

So near it came, I’d almost touch 
My heart’s desire — when far away 
’Twas drawn, and seemed a voice to say : 

‘ There let it rest, 

God knoweth best.’ ” 

V Gilbekt Maze stood in the '‘Nook” in his new 
house, at the window looking down upon the old 
house and the church ; the spot on which his new 
house was built was no doubt in a field where his 
grandfather used to hoe corn ; he was sure he re- 
membered a blackberry hedge somewhere here- 
about ; the field of corn and the blackberry hedge 
were things of the past, and in the delicious present 
arose Pheann's new house. 

His house was a finished thought. The furnish- 
ing was a finished thought, also : Leah's finished 
thought; it was perfect from laundry to attic; every 


224 


THBEE-AND-TWENTY. 


room had a character of its own ; Pheann’s chamber 
was a real girl’s chamber. 

‘‘ It is perfect,” Leah exclaimed, standing between 
the portieres of the Nook. I did not know I could 
enjoy doing it so. I feel as if I had done it all my- 
self.” 

It is like you,” he said. Leah, it is something 
to me that we have built and furnished a house to- 
gether.” 

It was the first time, since — how many years 
ago — that he had dared — 

It hurt her now; the tears started. 

“ I am glad, too,” she said. She often told him 
that she was glad. 

He was very happy about his house this Christ- 
mas afternoon. It was a perfected thing to leave in 
the world. He thanked God that he had not been 
called to leave it unfinished. It was almost hard to 
give it away, even to Pheann. Leah did not care 
for it, for herself. What did she care for, for her- 
self ? 

Again David’s words came to him: “And I am 
this day weak, though anointed king.” 

The walls of the Nook were hung with cartridge 


something: 


225 


paper of a sage tint, with gold in the frieze. High 
in the wall was a window of small, square panes, in 
the center bull’s-eye panes of a faint greenish tinge ; 
beneath this window was a shelf draped in festoon 
fashion with sage-green china silk, on the shelf 
books he loved : Phillips Brooks, Browning, Shake- 
speare, Thackeray; books that when she grew old 
Pheann must learn to love. 

The broad couch under the window, upon which 
he was reclining, was covered with a drapery of red 
Turcoman, a pillow of sage-green pongee silk rested 
at one end of the couch, another pillow Leah had 
placed against the wall. Near the couch stood a 
three-fold screen of white enameled wood draped 
with sage-green silk with gold border. The floor 
was covered with Brussels filling of a warm tint — 
that was for Pheann’s mother ; in front of the couch 
was thrown down a Smyrna rug ; there were other 
rugs, Japanese rugs of curious pattern. Upon a 
small table stood a jardiniere filled with hardy 
palms. A wrought-iron lantern was suspended from 
the ceiling, that would give a pleasant light for Pheann 
and her mother to talk in. The hanging which sep- 
arated this nook from the room beyond was red can- 


226 


TIIREE-ANB-TWENTY. 


ton flannel with the nap side out, the lining of sage- 
green sateen ; it was thrown over a pole to fall to 
the floor at both sides, and caught back with cord 
and tassels. 

It was all very pretty, a girl's nook, a nook for a 
girl with a mother. 

There was another nook down the hill, a dingy 
nook, where everything was worn, faded, care-worn, 
like the face of Pheann’s mother — but this morning, 
when the Christmas sun was shining in, it had, like 
the face of Pheann's mother, a beauty of its own. 

How could he suggest a change of abode to the 
invalid in her old age ? She was rooted in the soil, 
what right had he to tear her up by the roots ? 

But it was Pheann’s house — she had stood the 
drill — her heart had come home dragging its tail 
behind it — he laughed as the quaint conceit came 
to him ; he would go to Pheann and give her the 
choice of houses — why not have the jolly fun him- 
self of giving a legacy in his lifetime ? 

The next moment he was on his feet. He found 
Pheann alone with her mother ; she was telling her 
mother a boarding-school story, and both were laugh- 
ing. 


'' something: 


227 


“ Pheann/' he blurted out, '' I never could prepare 
anybody in my life. I built and furnished that 
house for you, and I want you and your mother to go 
and live in it. It is for you and your heirs forever.” 

Then he walked straight out. It was three days 
before he came again. 

He found Pheann this time in the kitchen. 
Mary O’Kane had decided that she needed a change 
and would not ^‘work out” any longer. Pheann 
was peeling potatoes. Her mother was in her wheel- 
chair in the sitting-room. 

Pheann, how many eggs last night ? ” 

Seventeen.” 

Does Harry give the hens warm feed ? ” 

“ Sometimes.” 

“ He ought to do it every night this cold weather. 
They will never lay without it,” was the querulous 
response. 

‘‘ Yes, mother, I will tell him.” 

Do you think Beauty and Kit and Mercy and 
Bess sleep warm ? ” 

'' Oh, yes,” laughed Pheann, “ Harry tucks them 
up in bed every night, and ties their night-caps 
under their chins.” 


228 


THllEE-’ANB-TWENTY. 


“ But he put Eover out in the cold, last night,” 
with a fretful intonation. 

“ Eover has a good bed out there,’’ was the com- 
forting response. 

‘‘ Is your bread light ? ” with the change of tone 
that came after a struggle with her petulance. 

‘‘ As light as my heart,” laughed Pheann. 

Don’t peel the potatoes too thick.” 

‘‘ No, Auntie,” re-assured Gilbert’s voice, “ they ’re 
just thin enough. I’m afraid the pig will starve on 
their insufficient nutriment.” 

“ Is the milk ready for the churn ? ” was the next 
question. 

‘"Yes,” said Pheann, as patiently as she could; 
‘‘Harry is coming to churn in a few minutes.” 

Pheann’s mother shut her eyes and her lips. The 
cat was curled up at her feet, Eover was stretching 
himself in the sunshine ; her cares were over for a 
few minutes ; she would take a nap. She had not 
slept well since she had heard the news about 
Pheann’s house. 

“ Well, Pheann,” said Gilbert, suggestively, at 
Pheann’s elbow. 

“ Do you remember what Euskin said ? ” inquired 
Pheann, mischievously. 


SOMETHING” 


229 


“ Yes, several remarks of his.” 

But about mother.” 

“ No,” he answered, puzzled. 

“He said, 'beloved samenesses.’ That means 
mother.” 

“ Oh,” a light breaking over his face, to be shad- 
owed instantly. 

“She would be homesick in that new house, as 
homesick as I was when I came from school.” 

“ Pheann, are you capable of such self-denial ? ” 

“ No,” she answered, “ but I am going to do it just 
the same.” 

He groaned. He was ashamed of it the next in- 
stant, but he groaned. 

“ She is so sick — and homesick beside — ” 

“ You are not sure.” 

“ Sure ? Has she talked of anything else ? Did 
she sleep an hour last night ? I’m afraid it would 
kill her.” 

“ Perhaps I can bring her over.” 

“ Oh, yes, you can. I could bring her over myself 
by having a tantrum.” 

“ Do have one, then,” he urged. 

“I’ve forgotten how,” she answered. 


230 


thuee-anb-twentt. 


“ Pheann, I don’t know how to give it up.” 

" I’m so sorry. I don’t know how myself. But, 
if you think it may be kept for me — ” she said, with 
hastily averted face. 

'' Kept Till the last day of your life.” 

Pheann could not help feeling it was heartless in 
him to walk off saying a silly thing ; why could he 
not give her one of his wise quotations, if he must 
be heartless enough to quote at all, something to 
help her through the only brave thing she ever did 
in her life ? But all he said was : — 

‘‘Little Bo-peep, she lost her sheep, 

And didn’t know where to find it; 

But leave it alone 
And it will come home, 

Dragging its tail behind it.” 

But harder than Gilbert Maze’s lack of sympathy 
was another happening that day. Her mother told 
Mary O' Kane about it. Mary had returned at night, 
saying she was tired of having a vacation, and 
couldn’t live outside of a kitchen. 

0, mother, mother, she will tell everybody,” she 
moaned, as she burst into tears. 

She doesn’t know everybody,” replied her mother 
tartly. 


something: 


231 


“But she knows a great many people,” sobbed 
Pheann. “ I can’t belong to myself at all ; but only 
to you and Mary O’Kane.” 

“I didn’t think I was doing any great harm,” 
whimpered her mother, exhausted physically and 
mentally by her sleepless nights and anxious days. 
“ She said I was just right, and ought not to stir one 
step out of this house to please anybody.” 

Pheann rushed up stairs to her cold room. What 
a holiday time she was having. And she had tried 
so hard to be good. 

Mary OKane put a bottle of hot water to the feet 
of Pheanii’s mother, and brushed her hair with the 
soft touch of her hard fingers, talking all the while. 
The invalid listened, and was diverted. When 
Pheann came down stairs, purple with cold, and with 
swollen eyes and thick voice, her mother said, con- 
ciliatingly : “ There, there, Pheann, don’t think any- 
thing more about the house. Mary says she will 
never tell, and we’ll forget all about it, and be com- 
fortable and snug in the old nest.” 

“If something good would only happen to me,” 
sighed Pheann in her heart, standing behind her 
mother’s chair under pretence of arranging the head- 


232 


THBEE-ANB-TWENTY, 


rest, and with successful effort keeping the sigh out 
of her eyes and lips. 

That evening, to mark the day so eventful, and so 
uneventful, she sat at the table in the sitting-room af- 
ter her mother had fallen restfully asleep, and wrote 
a letter. Somebody must help her ; she could not 
live another day unless she poured out her heart to 
somebody who would respond. The paper she most 
delighted in was The Homemaker^ the letters writ- 
ten to girls by the editor had been her greatest helps 
for months past, since her cousin Gilbert had given 
her the paper ; it was a new thing in literature to 
her, so homely, homelike, and helpful; the editor 
was one of her many unknown friends. A reply 
came by mail within a week, and two weeks after- 
ward, to her surprise and pleasure, she found in The 
Homemaker a brief article, named : '' A Bit of a 
Girl’s Letter.” 

' Eepose is what I am always aiming at, and, oh 
how I fail. I say to myself a hundred times a day : 
Keejp still. Were you always as you are now ? And 
how did you get to be yourself? Did you ever put 
things in wrong places, or not put them at all? 
Were you ever self-absorbed, and rude, and ungainly ? 


something:^ 


233 


Did you ever laugh instead of smile, and romp in- 
stead of having graceful, pretty movements ? I’m 
making in my mind a model woman, and shall strive 
to follow her (when I have finished building her up). 

‘"'Mother would say: “Follow Christ,” only she 
never talks to me about the best things. 

“ ‘But he never did any of the wrong things I men- 
tioned ; and I want a woman to follow — a live, true 
woman. Did you ever wish that the life of the 
mother of Jesus had been written, so that we girls 
might have had the maiden and the mother to fol- 
low ? She must have been a very beautiful and 
noble woman. But, perhaps, it is wicked to wish 
for the story of her life.’ So writes a girl to me. 

“ I have something to say to this girl. 

“ Don’t you know, you girls who desire ‘ repose ’ 
as perfection of manner, that repose is not manner, 
but spirit ? 

“ Your manner, your outside self, is only the atti- 
tude of your mind and heart toward God and the 
person next to you; your manner is simply your 
real self expressed in signs. Your thought toward 
a person will be uttered in this sign language, un- 
consciously to yourself ; another person enters, your 


234 


TIlItEE^ANB-TWENTY. 


manner changes, because you have changed; your 
real self has another story to tell. 

“ See that awkward girl marching to the sound of 
music; where is that expression of herself that 
irritated you ? For the moment she is expressing 
the music; it is not only mastering her step and 
her shoulder, but her lip and eye. Change the 
music, you change her step ; you change the ex- 
pression of lip and eye. 

“Now the 'spirit,* which in the 'sight of God is 
of great price,* will mold your outside self into the 
very repose and refinement of grace; you will be- 
come graceful, full of grace ; graceful in carriage, in 
tone, in the expression of your eye, in the curve of 
your lip, and the touch* of your hand, graceful in 
every breath that moves you: a living thing of 
grace. 

'' And that maiden and mother you speak of : was 
there not within her the Holy Spirit, the breath of 
God?** 


AN OLD DIAnT AND A NEW DIARY. 235 


XVII. 

AN OLD DIAKY AND A NEW DIARY. 

“ It Is the man who is the missionary ; it is not his words. 
His character is his message.’* — Drummond. 

“There are no moral blanks; there are no neutral charac- 
ters.” — Chalmers. 

‘‘Nobody knows what girls have to go through; 
there is always something to decide, because a 
thing is God’s will or it is not. Now since I have 
begun to love his will best, I desire intensely to 
have it every hour of my life, in every pleasure, 
in every book I read. I don’t know whether to 
read Lowell to-day, or Tennyson, or a novel (one 
of the best ones), or whether to write letters, or go 
shopping for the green cloth dress I want so much, 
or should want so much if I knew it was God’s 
will for me to have it — that or a garnet. I would 
like garnet best, if I thought I might. I wish I 
need never depend upon my own judgment, that I 


236 


THREE- A NI)-TWENTT, 


could hear his voice in my ear every day, every 

houry 

I wrote this in my blank book one day when life 
was full of things to be decided about : I did not 
do anything that whole day because I could not 
decide what to do. 

Something like this, only not half, I said to 
Leah one evening after Auntie had gone to bed : 
she has early bedtime, like a child, because she is 
not strong, and sleep is food as well as rest to her ; 
and Leah and Elizabeth and I were together. It 
was Christmas week, and mother sent me to cousin 
Leah ‘ for a change.’ She is always a change to 
me. Mother does not know what else to do with 
me. We were in Leah’s pretty room. 

The room is made of Leah, for she made almost 
everything in it, that a woman’s fingers can make. 

‘‘ Oh, dear me,” she really groaned, ‘‘ have you 
grown up to go through that ? Then Sarah 
Grimk^ will help you.” 

‘AVho is she?” 

“ A Charleston girl who was a girl half a cen- 
tury ago — and longer ; I have just finished her life, 
and I copied pages of her diary, for I knew some 
girl was ready for it.” 


AN OLD DIARY AND A NEW DIARY. 237 


“ Oh, joy ! ” exclaimed Elizabeth ; we girls are 
ready for everything. And I do think diaries are 
delicious, real ones, with something beside religion 
in them.” 

‘‘Elizabeth, religion is in everything,” I re- 
buked her, almost too shocked to speak at all. 

Elizabeth did not know that I was living a new 
life. I was afraid nobody did, by my life itself; 
and how could I tell my secret thoughts and 
prayers ? And how I was being guided and led. 

“It was the fashion in the last century and 
the early part of this century for educated people 
to keep diaries ; girls did not write poems and 
stories as they do now-a-days, and had to have an 
outlet; perhaps they had to do it to keep from 
bursting.” 

“ Leah, you are the editor of a paper yourself,” 
I said indignantly. 

“That’s how I know what girls write now-a- 
days to keep from bursting,” she said. “ Perhaps 
girls talk more now-a-days. Still, I think girls 
have always talked enough. Sarah Grimke’s diary 
was good for you and me, even if, in herself, it 
nourished and encouraged sentiment instead of 


238 


THREE-AND^T WENTY, 


pure obedience, and study of herself, and events, 
instead of God’s real truth and own words. 

‘‘ She was so concerned with her own safety and 
happiness for this world and the next, that when 
her dear father became very ill, all her thought 
was that the illness and suffering was a merciful 
interposition of Providence to stop her gay life. 
Other people’s lives and troubles were made for 
her special benefit ; which may be one subtle dan- 
ger of diary-writing. Yom* self is your own hero- 
ine. The earth turns on its axis for your sake.” 

Elizabeth laughed. She knew about my big 
blank book. 

“ In her diary is found not one prayer for her 
mother or brothers and sisters. She was one of 
fourteen children, and her world might have been 
peopled with some one beside herself. Now I’ll 
read my extracts from her diary and biography.” 

Evidently Leah’s big blank book was not filled 
with the thoughts and doings of Leah Ritchie. 

Leah read, and how mutely we listened : — 

‘‘ She believed that God constantly spoke to her 
heart by the still, small voice, and the fidelity with 
which she obeyed this invisible guide was not only 


AN OLD BIABY AND A NEW DIABY, 239 


a real detriment to her spiritual progress, but 
the cause of much distress to her. When, as 
sometimes happened, from various causes, she 
failed in obedience, her mental suffering was in- 
tense, and, in abject humility, she accepted as pun- 
ishment any mortification and sorrow that came to 
her afterwards. As a sequence to this hallucina- 
tion, she had also visions at various times, and saw 
and communed with spirits, and did not hesitate 
to acknowledge their influence, and to respect 
their intimations. So marvelously real were her 
feelings on these points that her immediate friends, 
though greatly deploring their effect upon her, 
seldom ventured any remonstrance against them.” 

‘‘ Once, when I was younger than I am now,” said 
Leah, closing her book for a moment, ‘‘I was 
in great perplexity about something. If you girls 
know that it was a question of marriage, you will 
be all the more interested. I was twenty-four, and 
old enough to have some judgment and common 
sense. But I wanted to be guided; guided in 
some unusual way. That my mother was not 
happy over the young man, seemed not to be 
in the way of guidance. Her voice was only a 


240 


THREE-AN1)-TWENTY, 


common earthly voice, and I wanted a voice from 
Heaven. Girls who refuse the guidance made es- 
pecially for them often come to grievous times. 
One evening on the rosebush outside my window 
a little bird came and began to sing ! That is to 
strengthen my faith to go on ! I said to myself. 
And I went on.” 

But it was unusual,” I ventured. 

Yes ; I never knew that thing to happen before 
or since. But you can see how untrustworthy 
that sign was in itself. 

‘‘ God’s birds do come to us with his own mes- 
sage, and Christ has told us just what that is. If we 
stray away from the voice in the word of God, we 
are sure to be allured by some voice ; for, depend- 
ent and listening creatures that we are, we must 
listen to something. But the queerest thing about 
it usually is, that the voice we listen to falls in 
with some secret self-will of our own.” 

Then Leah opened her big blank-book again; 
“ Under the influence of her new belief the impres- 
sion of a divine call to be made upon her deepened, 
and soon took shape in the persuasion that it was 
to be a call to .the ministry. Her soul recoiled at 


AN OLD DIARY AND A NEW DIARY. 241 


the very thought of work so solemn, and she 
prayed the Lord to spare her, but the more she 
prayed the stronger and clearer the intimations 
became, until she felt that no loophole of escape 
was left her from obedience to her Master’s will. 
One morning, in a prayer-meeting where very few 
were gathered, the inward voice bade her rise and 
speak, but she resisted and did not open her lips. 
Then she was filled with remorse, believing that 
she had sinned against the Holy Ghost, that she 
would never be forgiven, and no sacrifice she could 
offer would atone for this first step in disobedience. 
Through many years she suffered because of this 
disobedience.” 

‘‘ Did you ever go through anything like that? ” 
Elizabeth inquired with very red cheeks. 

“Something like it,” answered Leah; “and of 
course, you would like to know all about it, but I 
should have to tell you the whole story to make 
you understand. And as Sarah Grimk^’s story 
will answer instead of mine, I shall not tell you.” 

“But your disobedience was not like that?” I 
urged. 

“No; but mine was also a fancied disobedience. 


242 


TBREE-AND-TWENTY, 


I might better have been groaning over a real one. 
Because of the reproaches and ridicule of her fam- 
ily,” Leah read again, “ who could not understand 
her exalted state of mind, she left her mother, who 
sadly needed her, and brothers and sisters to whom, 
if she had been living a natural Christian life, she 
might have been a real inspiration, and found a home 
in Philadelphia among more congenial spirits. 
Listen to this about wearing a becoming black dress : 
‘ One day, as I was dressing, I felt as if I could not 
proceed, but sat down with my dress half on, and 
these words passed through my mind : Can it be 
of any consequence in the sight of God, whether I 
wear a black dress or not? The evidence was 
clear that it was not, but that self-will was the 
cause of my continuing to do it. For this I 
suffered much, but was at length strengthened to 
cast away this idol.’ 

“ To quote from her biographer : ‘ In her strong re- 
liance upon her inner lights Sarah refused to trust 
her own judgment even in the merest trifles, such 
as the lending of a book to a friend, postponing 
the writing of a letter, or sweeping a room to-day 
when it might be better to defer it till to-morrow.’ 


AN OLD DIAHY AND A NEW DIARY. 243 


To quote from her diary : ‘ In this frame of mind 
I went to meeting, and, it being a rainy day, I 
took a large, handsome umbrella which I had ac- 
cepted from brother Henry, accepted it rather 
doubtfully, therefore, wrongfully, and have never 
felt quite easy to use it. After I was in meeting, 
I was much tried with a wandering mind, and, 
every now and then, the umbrella would come 
before me, so that I sat trying to wait on my God, 
and he showed me that I must not only give up 
this little thing, but return it to my brother. Glad 
to purchase peace, I yielded ; then the reasoner 
said I could put it away and not use it, but this 
language was spoken : I have shown thee ivhat tv as 
required of thee. It seemed to me that a little 
light came through a narrow passage when my will 
was subdued. Now this is a marvelous thing to 
me, as marvelous as the dealings of the Lord with 
me in what may appear great things ! ’ A new 
snare from Satan, she calls it, when the allurement 
of marriage was given to her. It must have been 
some one that her poor, tried heart might have 
loved, and her poor, sick conscience told her the 
human love and loving was from Satan. She 


244 


THBEE-AND-TWENTY. 


believed that her craving for human love, and 
home, and motherly ways, was an evidence of her 
still unsanctified heart and in her diary are found 
many heart-rending prayers for submission to her 
inner light, and for strength to bear her great sac- 
rifice. I love to tell you what she wrote about 
when years of longer experience had taught 
her that God’s will is not to crush the hearts he 
has made, as we find them every day of our lives ; 
she wrote : ‘ There are moments, diamond points in 
life, when God fills the yearning soul and supplies all 
our needs, through the richness of his mercy in 
Christ Jesus. But human hearts are created for 
human hearts to love, and to be loved by, and their 
claims are as true and sacred as those of the spirit.’ ” 

Elizabeth and I looked at each other; we be- 
lieved that. We believed a great deal that we did 
not speak of, even to each other. 

“ In her old age,” Leah said, “ her biographer tells 
us, and it rests me so to know it, for Sarah Grimke 
has become very near to me, ‘ Sarah’s religious 
anxieties seem all to have vanished before the 
absorbing interest of her work ; she had no longer 
time to think of herself, or to stand and question 


AN OLD BIABY A NEW DAIRY. 245 


the Lord upon every going-out and coming-in. 
She relied upon him as much as ever, but she 
understood him better, and had more faith hi his 
loving kindness.'^ ” 

“Did she ever become a preacher ? ” I asked. 

“After wading through seas of suffering, and 
years of embarrassing attempts to speak and preach, 
she writes : ‘ My spirit has not bowed to this dis- 
pensation without prayer for resignation to being 
thus laid aside ; but since I have been able to take 
the above view ’ — that her sister was such a bril- 
liant and effective speaker that her own efforts 
were not appreciated — ‘ I have been content to be 
silent, believing that so is the will of God.^ Poor 
heart, if she only might have believed it Avithout 
making a martyr of herself.” 

“ Did she ever change her mind enough to 
marry ? ” Elizabeth questioned with shy, quick 
color. 

“ I think she changed her mind enough,” said 
Leah, “ but ‘ he that Avill not Avhen he may, Avhen he 
will he shall have nay.’ Anyway she never married, 
but was the dearest Aunt Sai boys and girls ever 
had. She studied French after she was sixty-two, 


246 


THBEE-A ND- T WENTY. 


rather, perfected herself in it, and translated the 
life of Joan of Arc into English.” 

‘‘ Attracted to Joan because she, too, heard 
voices, I suppose,” I ventured, wondering if I must 
never listen to a voice again. 

‘‘What was the end of her?” asked Elizabeth. 

“ I think she ended sooner than she might have 
done, because of her still willful spirit ; she does, 
with all her unselfishness, seem to love her own 
way. She had had attacks of fainting, but was not 
thought to be seriously ill. She had a habit, a 
good one, very likely, of airing her bed, every 
night, at bed-time, turning back the covers, and 
throwing the windows open for purer air. It was 
December, and a rainy day ; at night the air was 
damp, and she insisted, against good advice, in 
opening her windows and bed for the usual night 
airing, saying that Florence Nightingale said damp 
air never injured any one. But Florence Night- 
ingale might have said something different to a 
sick, old woman. She took cold that night, and 
died in two weeks, about Christmas time.” 

“ Leah, you are telling us a Christmas story,” 
I said. 


AN OLD DIARY AND A NEW DIARY, 247 


“ Oh, dear, there comes my Pet Aversion,” 
Elizabeth sighed, then laughed, as Gilbert Maze 
appeared unannounced within the portiere. Eliz- 
abeth says he thinks he is of no more consequence 
than a spirit, and may come in as airily. 

“ I have some new Christmas music,” said Leah. 
(We knew they were not in love with each other, 
they were as easy together as a pair of old shoes.) 

Did you expect me ? ” he inquired ‘‘ or were 
these two girls all the Christmas company you 
desired ? ” 

“ I knew you would come. Mother expected 
you ; she would have been laboring over a letter of 
Christmas thanks, if I had not assured her the post- 
age would be wasted.” 

‘‘ Neither thanks, nor music, nor that fire, nor the 
tempting odor of dinner through the house will 
soothe me,” he replied, coming into the midst of 
our confidences as he always did, old bachelor as 
he was, “ for I have had the most unselfish effort 
of my long and unselfish life thrown back at me, 
literally tossed into my face. And I thought, like 
Dora in David Copperfield, I was such a mouse 
to think of it. I am completely subdued and 
knocked over.” 


248 


TIIREE-AND-TWENTT. 


‘‘Do confess,” coaxed Elizabeth. 

“ No, tortures shall not draw it from me. I will 
suffer in humiliation. It will embitter me and 
make me more unbearable than ever. I cannot 
even flee to Egypt to escape it.” 

“You are like the Israelites, always running to 
Egypt,” rebuked Leah. 

“ I like Egypt. I don’t know why, either. I 
don’t know why I like anything.” 

“ May you not try again ? ” I asked. 

• As I looked into his deep-set eyes, luminous, 
and yet grave, I wondered if he and Sarah Grimk^ 
were at all alike. I could imagine Gilbert Maze 
having spiritual struggles, with all his levity and 
ridiculous quotations. 

“No ; I never try, try again. That’s why I am 
such a failure. I thought that house was a suc- 
cess, a finished thought, your finished thought, Miss 
Leah, only you always hoped it would be thrown 
back in my face. I am hard hit.” 

“ What will you do with the house ? ” I asked, 
for I knew Pheann had refused it. 

“ Burrow in it, hide in it, be a hermit in it, live 
a savage, disappointed-in-womankind life in it,” 
he said in his gentlest voice. 


AN OLD DIARY AND A NEW DIARY. 249 


Are you disappointed in womankind ? ” I in- 
quired. For he is such an old bachelor that I 
never mind what I say to him. And then, he 
looks older than my father. 

“ Yes,” he said, with a flash under his heavy eye- 
brows. 

Not in Pheann.” 

“ Oh, Pheann is only girlkind. Miss Leah, I 
have a plot. It just thickened in my fruitful 
brain. I shall, with your gracious permission, lay 
this rejected house of mine at your mother’s feet. 
Not as a gift ; it is not my own to give, but a most 
precious loan until such time as I must ask it 
back again. I cannot think of leaving it empty, 
with coal in the cellar and the furnace fire already 
kindled, and, equally, I cannot think of it falling 
into the hands of any Philistine of a tenant. 
Your mother must have it, and you must open 
your after-boarding-school home for girls.” 

“ That thought is also your own,” she answered, 
with admiration and gratitude (as well as com- 
passion) in her eyes. And then neither of them 
would talk any more about it. 

When I went home and told mother about it 


250 


THREE-ANB-TWENTY, 


she exclaimed : ‘‘ I am glad Mr. Gilbert Maze has, 
for once in his life, thouofht of somebody beside 
himself.” 

When father was a small boy he sold oranges on 
a board in the street, and now he sends his ships to 
sea. Neither father nor mother have any patience 
with Gilbert Maze. They say they never heard 
of one unselfish thing he ever did. 

A week after I went home from cousin Leah’s 
she wrote to mother that Aunt Ritchie had ac- 
cepted, for a while at least, the generous offer of 
Gilbert Maze (although he said it was pure selfish- 
ness in himself), and asked if she could spare me 
for one of her after-boarding-school girls. 

Mother said instantly: ‘‘That helps me out. 
Cousin Leah will help you to just the recreation 
you need ; and now I can go abroad with your 
father with a clearer conscience. You are not 
ready for your year abroad yet.” 

I thought I was just ready for it. But mother 
was firm, and father said cousin Leah was just the 
brain my fidgetty brain needed. So I went to 
Newark the day father and mother started off for 
a year abroad. 


AN OLD BIABY AND A NEW BIABY. 251 


All mother’s friends declared it was very queer not 
to take me, and told mother she was not up to the 
times in the training of her only daughter. But 
mother only laughed, and father only looked wise. 
I was not happy about it ; I did not fret outwardly, 
but I grew shivery and cold inwardly, and was 
disappointed and hateful. Mother put my ward- 
robe in perfect order, in all the latest styles, and 
father told me my spending money was to be but 
ten dollars a month. Then I shivered inwardly 
about that. He does not wish me to be idle and 
a spendthrift like Gilbert Maze,” I thought; ^Gie 
thinks money would spoil me,” and I decided I 
would not ask him to increase my allowance if I 
starved. 

At first there were two of us girls, and then 
Pheann Douglas came every day. I do not know 
whether we studied or not. I think we read and 
wrote and talked. How Ave did talk. And we 
took the longest walks, and sewed. Hoav we did 
sew. But, then, how we did everything. And the 
housekeeping, with four of us, Leah, her mother, 
Elizabeth and I, with only one servant, was almost 
the best fun of all. Gilbert Maze had a Avay of 


252 


THBEE-ANB-TWENTT, 


strolling in for his twilight music. He coughed 
all winter, but he would not go to Florida, or any- 
where else. He looked waxy and hollow, and was 
sharp to us all and said we were a flock of silly 
things ; nevertheless he brought us all the latest 
magazines, and always went to church with us 
Sunday evenings : but he would have his own way 
about everything, and insisted that we should go to 
that ugly church in front of Pheann Douglas’s 
house. It was in her yard,” he said. She used 
to go with us when Mary O’Kane was there to 
stay with her mother. One Sunday evening we, 
all four of us, made a call upon Pheann’s mother, 
and I heard him tell Mary O’ Kane in the kitchen 
that she must go away and stay, or come and stay ; 
he would have no more shilly-shallying. Then 
the old frowsy thing said meekly she would come 
and stay. 

One evening the minister in that ugly church read 
something so pretty that I wrote it down before I 
went to sleep that night. 

He said : There was once an angel who desired to 
help the people on earth. 

“ You may go down,” said the Lord ; ''but you can 


AN OLD DIARY AND A NEW DIARY. 253 


do but one thing to help. Choose what it shall be.” 

The angel pondered and pondered, thinking of the 
homes that needed help, the fathers and mothers, the 
grandmothers and little children, the sick, the dis- 
couraged, the sinful. 

I have chosen,” said the angel ; I will pray for 
them.'' 


An old woman awoke and looked about her. She 
was lying on a bed in a small whitewashed room ; 
the morning sunlight was shut out by the thick 
green paper curtain that had been unrolled and 
dropped to the window sill ; birds were singing on 
the other side of the paper curtain ; there was a stir 
about the small house, and the odor of breakfast. 

“ I wish the old woman could help,” grumbled a 
voice within the old woman’s hearing. She can do 
nothing but lie in bed — not even sew carpet-rags.” 

‘‘Well, the town pays her board,” returned an- 
other voice. 

“The town may pay her board somewhere else, 
then,” replied the grumbling voice. “ You may 
tell Overseer Jackson she has been here long 
enough.” 

Then the old woman on the bed closed her eyes 


254 


THREE- A ND- T WENTY, 


and prayed softly : '' Lord, give that woman a lov- 
ing heart toward thy poor/' 


The old woman was sitting in an arm-chair ; her 
hands were laid idly within each other, for she 
could not help anybody. 

It’s no use for me to try," sobbed a little girl, 
standing near her chair. '' I am stupid at my les- 
sons, and I can’t help it ; and I did so want to be 
a teacher and go to India and teach little girls." 

Then the old woman laid one of her idle hands 
on the child’s head and prayed softly : Lord, give 
this child a studious mind and perseverance." 

The old woman found herself in another home, 
a poor home, indeed, for only the poor, or the par- 
simonious, who wished to save money, would take 
a helpless old woman to board ; the town paid but 
a dollar and a half a week, and in each house 
something had to be saved out of that. 

A cup of weak coffee, sweetened with a spoon- 
ful of molasses, and hasty pudding and skimmed 
milk were her breakfast all the year round. 


AN OLD DIARY AND A NEW DIARY. 255 


“I think that boy’s spine will never be strong 
enough for him to do anything in the world,” the 
doctor said to the mother of a small boy. 

Then the old woman prayed softly : “ Lord, 
make his spine strong and give him work to do 
for thee.” 


“ The old woman doesn’t eat much,” said the 
farmer’s wife, '' and her face is cheerful-like to 
have about.” 

“ But she will never help us pay off the mortgage,” 
replied the farmer; “she eats a dollar’s worth a 
week.” 

Then the old woman smiled and prayed softly, 
“ Lord, help this poor man, with five children to feed, 
to pay off his mortgage.” 

The old woman sat in her arm-chair at the win- 
dow. The young minister was talking to a man in 
the street : “ This people will not hear,” he said ; 
“ my heart is heavy. There were only four at prayer- 
meeting last night.” 

Then the old woman smiled with a smile that was 
like the joy in heaven, and prayed softly; “Lord, 


256 


TilliEE-ANB- T WENTY, 


send thy promised Holy Spirit down upon thy 
church in this place.” 

One morning the old woman was not found in her 
bed. In five months she had been in five homes ; 
no one wanted her ; she had no way to help. The 
village people were glad that she was gone. 

But in that village was one who wept — the wo- 
man who had a loving heart toward God’s poor. 

There was a child there who had a studious mind 
and perseverance ; she expected to be a missionary 
to girls, some day. 

In another home was a boy grown so strong that 
his mother hoped he would grow up and do good 
work in the world. 

And a man, the father of five children, worked 
with a merry heart in his field, because there was 
no mortgage on it. 

A young minister knelt in his study, and, with 
uplifted face and clasped hands thanked God joy- 
fully for the Holy Spirit that had been sent down 
upon the church. 


I’m glad the town has built a poor-house,” said a 


AN OLD DIAEY AND A NEW DIARY. 257 


woman, one day ; “ the poor used to board around, 
and one old woman used to give me the creeps, be- 
cause there was nothing in the world she could do. 
Her hands were crippled, and her eyes wouldn’t let 
her read — if she knew how — and she had lost her 
speech.” 

Pheann said she told it to her mother. 

But her mother can sew and knit and read, and 
tell us girls the most interesting stories of her own 
long-ago girlhood. Nothing so interesting ever hap- 
pens to us. I wish something would. I wish one 
of us, or all of us, would fall in love. 

But Gilbert Maze is the only gentleman that calls 
upon us (beside Dr. Vreeland — who is only our doc- 
tor), and he doesn’t call, he belongs to us. And he 
isn’t a gentleman, he is only Gilbert Maze, that no one 
in the world would ever think of falling in love with. 
It would he fun to see somebody worth falling in 
love with, even if I, or the rest of us, had no inclina- 
tion to do it. (But I’m afraid I have.) I am striv- 
ing to leave what Leah calls ' sentimentalities ’ out 
of my diary. I have never told her that once I 
heard (or thought I heard) a voice speaking when I 
was praying, and saying. Thy prayer is heard. She 


268 


THREE- AN D-TWENTY. 


does not believe in anything but obedience ; which 
is just the same as saying that she believes in the 
hardest thing in the world. 

I was so surprised and glad one day when she told 
me that the story of the old woman who was an 
angel from Heaven was among the typewritten arti- 
cles she has so often sent to her paper ; this was 
printed years ago. She told us the best articles in 
her paper for years had been from this same hand. 
We have all fallen in love with the unknown author. 
The articles are dated New York City, and mailed in 
New York, and once there were initials, L. E. M. 
One poem. Wild Roses, is the prettiest thing I know. 
And another. Brown Eyes. The brown eyes are the 
eyes of a child. Two lines remind me of cousin 
Leah : — 

‘‘ From those brown eyes so dear to see 
The love of God looks out at me.” 

Leah says she wishes she might write a letter to 

L. E. M. and tell her how she loves her, but '' L. E. 

M. ” and New York City ’’ would be too deep a puz- 
zle for even Uncle Sam’s penetration. 

Gilbert Maze suggested that she is a typewriter 
girl; he made an impromptu parody on “Brown 


AN OLD DIARY AND A NEW DIARY. 259 


Eyes*’ that made us laugh while it provoked us. 
But he never talks seriously to us girls, unless it is 
with one of his wise quotations. Elizabeth says he 
never has a thought of his own. But I think it is 
something to appreciate quotations. 

Last Sunday a new minister preached. It was 
Eobert Leavenworth, cousin Leah’s baby-sweetheart. 
The church is in debt and the salary is behind. 
Mr. Leavenworth has said to the church that he will 
not accept the call until the debt is paid. I wish 
father would pay the debt. Elizabeth says Mr. 
Maze could, but he would never think of such a 
thing. She hopes he will lose his precious money. 

One evening we had a talk — rather they had a 
talk; I was too interested in listening to speak 
often ; and, then, the others talk so well I do not 
need to. Sometimes I think I am not needed — 
only to love people. I think loving is all Sarah 
Field, Simpleton, knows how to do. 

The talk began with Pheann saying the associate 
editor must be a typewriter girl, for a man would 
never think of writing about wild roses. Then Mr. 
Maze agreed with her, and made up some nonsense 
verses about wild roses and red roses, and thorns and 


260 


TUREE-AND-TWENTY, 


wrongs, and briers and friars, and dudes and moods, 
and everybody laughed ; but when he ended with lane 
and pain, and lingers and fingers, Pheann suddenly 
flashed and flushed, and then looked grave. I did 
not think she would take his making fun so much 
to heart. But, then, she loves wild roses. 

Elizabeth said Solomon knew about the hyssop 
that grew on the wall, and he would not have been 
above writing about wild roses. 

I thought of One who talked about the lilies, but 
I could not say it. It was too precious to speak in 
the merry din. 

Then, somehow we got to talking about under- 
standing people. Mr. Leavenworth said fine things, 
which I wish I could remember to write down ; so 
did Dr. Vreeland ; I never heard him talk so well; 
he said the more he knew people, the harder it was 
to understand them ; he found himself continually 
misjudging; if it were so hard to know one’s self, 
how much harder to know other people. 

Cousin Leah said when she was a girl (‘'sweet- 
and-twenty,” Mr Maze interrupted) she prided her- 
self upon being a student of human nature ; at a 
first interview she thought she understood a charac- 


AN OLD DIARY AND A NEW DIARY. 261 


ter ; and she had vehement likes and dislikes. And, 
now, she waited. 

Mr. Maze said something that surprised Elizabeth, 
I know by the corners of her mouth. He said, think 
of each man as Eight Hand and his neighbor as 
Left Hand; even in that close intimacy of hand 
touching hand, and hand helping hand, there was a 
command for Eight Hand not to give his secret self 
to Left Hand. 

‘‘But that spoils frankness and genuineness,” 
Elizabeth said, “ and how can Eight Hand and Left 
Hand work together ? ” 

“We take it for granted that Left Hand has com- 
mon sense,” Mr. Maze replied. 

“ And Charity,” said Cousin Leah. 

“And Love always understands,” Mr. Maze said, 
— and then he seemed fidgetty because he had been 
so serious, and proposed a game. 

The game was to be played with pencil and paper, 
the same word to be written on each paper, and 
each one to write quickly, and in a flash of thought 
(not stop to think), the next word that came of it- 
self. We had great fun when cousin Leah read 
them aloud, not giving the names. 


262 


thuee-anb-twenty. 


I asked her to let me copy them in my blank 
book. We all ended so far apart, cousin Leah said 
she wished she were character-reader enough to know 
the past and future of each writer. 

Mr. Maze gave the initial word : Tree-toad. 

Tree-toad. 

Country road. 

Africa. 

Equator. 

Witticism. 

Mark Twain. 

Palestine. 

Jericho. 

Eailroad. 

The Jews. 

Par. 

Charles Dickens. 

This was read first, and Mr. Maze had to tell how 
he got to Charles Dickens from tree-toad. 

He said: ‘‘The first easily suggested the second 
— that road a white house was on, with gable to the 
road, and Africa because he had been reading about 
the trodden paths in Africa ; and when he was a 
child, he thought Africa was the only spot the equa- 


AN OLD DIABY AND A NEW DIARY. 26 ^ 


tor ran through — because on the map he could see 
it so plainly,— and equator reminded him of a funny 
thing he saw in the paper, and Mark Twain came 
naturally ; and Palestine because he had been looking 
over Innocents Abroad, and then Jericho, and rail- 
road, of course, he was thinking about the railroad 
to Jericho, or from Jericho to Jerusalem, And just 
think of a steamboat on the Dead Sea/^ he put in by 
way of parenthesis ; and the Jews had to come next, 
and the mother of the Eothschilds, who, when she 
was ninety -nine, hoped to reach one hundred, that 
she might die at par, and that suggested something 
in Dickens. 

Tree-toad. 

Pond. 

Green slime. 

Mary Green. 

Country funeral. 

Stepmothers. 

Foreigner. 

Faith. 

Substance. 

Geology. 

Dean. 

A Eoman altar. 


264 


THREE- A NB-TWENTY, 


Then Dr. Vreeland told his association. 

‘"I don’t know why a tree-toad suggested pond, 
but it certainly did — and green slime comes next, 
and poor Mary Green, a patient I had, whose illness 
and death were sad things, and her country funeral ; 
and, after she died her father married a second wife, 
and a Hungarian workman said, 'second mothers 
are not always good,’ which remark seems to stick 
to me ; and then faith, from something else he said 
one day when I was binding up a hand that the 
mowing machine had injured; and what but suh- 
stance should come next and remind me of as firm as 
a rock and geology, and that brought the anecdote 
of a dean who was such a geologist, who lost his 
way one dark night and dismounted to smell the 
earth and discover just where he was ; and York has 
a dean, and York reminded me of something I often 
look back to — a Eoman altar.” 

Mr. Leavenworth’s last word was parchment, 
cousin Leah’s rainbow, Elizabeth’s yellow jacket, 
Pheann’s disappointment, and my own (I’m afraid 
I was not honest, for I could not put the thought 
that came first; I was ashamed — but, not ashamed 
before you, dear Blank Book — it was homesick) 
was lead pencil , 


AN OLD DIARY AND A NEW DIARY, 265 


It was the lead pencil father sharpened for me 
that day on the steamer ; I have not used it once, 
it makes me want him so. 

I don’t see what makes me so homesick — only 
everybody seems to have somebody — and it is so 
many miles of sea and land to my father and mother. 
I try hard to keep homesickness out of my bi- 
weekly letters, and make happiness that I do not 
feel over everything that happens. But I had to 
tell mother I would fly to her if she did not come 
home before Christmas. 

I do believe cousin Leah guesses, for she finds 
the sweetest things for me to do. She often writes 
to mother ; I dare not beg her not to tell mother I 
am so homesick. There is not a bit of brave stuff 
in me ; it is all baby-stuff. Oh, dear, oh, dear, what 
would I do without my dear Blank Book — which 
will not be blank much longer, if I keep on at this 
rate. I wonder what girls do without a mother 
and a Blank Book. 

Somehow we fell again (or they did) into talk 
about understanding people, and Gilbert Maze said 
to be misunderstood was harder than to be not 
understood, and to be misunderstood by the person 


266 


THREE^AND’-TWENTY, 


one loved best was something too bad for this 
world, it must be one of the elements of eternal 
punishment. 

I was sitting near cousin Leah, and felt the shiver 
that she shivered all through and through. Does 
some one she loves misunderstand her'i I had to 
look at Dr. Vreeland then, and his eyes burnt black 
(they are blue). 

I suppose they have had a misunderstanding. 
Who makes misunderstandings right ? I should 
think Mr. Maze might himself ; he is such a strong 
friend of both. 

But, of course, the next thing he said was ridicu- 
lous ; he began making fun of the editor, and asked 
her if she had ever heard of the first woman editor 
in the world. He always has a story to tell; but 
this time he read it. I asked him to let me copy it, 
for some day, when I am so - old that I shall not be 
ashamed of being a simpleton, I shall (ought that to 
be shall or will ?) let mother and father read this. 
(After I die perhaps. It’s lovely to die young.) He 
read this, and how we listened, and laughed : — 

^‘Searching among the musty treasures of the 
Congressional Library, one may notice two newspa- 


AN OLD DIABY AND A NEW DIABY, 267 


pers, yellow with age, and quaint with pioneer idiom 
and had grammar. They are designated respectively 
by the fanciful titles ‘Paul Pry’ and ‘The Hun- 
tress,’ but both were owned and edited by the same 
person, a woman too. 

“ Anna Eoyal was the first female editor in the 
country, and perhaps in the world ; and enriched 
the Capitol with her rare literature for a period of 
some years between the dates of 1830 and 1840, 
until suppressed by order of the powers that be, on 
account of her propensity for finding out and pub- 
lishing the affairs of her neighbors. Not that she 
was the only person engaged in circulating among 
the public the private affairs of other people at that 
time; for unfortunately that has always been a 
thriving industry at Washington, although it never 
pays ; and it is not confined to the sex of Mrs. Eoyal 
either. But then she called to her aid the mighty 
power of the press, and that is quite a different affair 
from the small tittle-tattle of the afternoon tea, or 
the midnight tipple. 

“ Even grave senators feared her, for had she been 
armed with all the ‘phones’ that have been in- 
vented in the last decade, she could not have been 


268 


THBEE-ANB-TWENTY, 


more successful in unearthing their little secrets ; and 
they would go into her paper, and be secrets no 
longer, unless Mistress Eoyal put on her invisible 
cap, in return for some service or favor which her 
unfortunate victim was able to grant. She was an 
inveterate lobbyist, and would tackle a senator or 
representative, for whom she happened to have a 
' rod in pickle,' on the street, or anywhere else, take 
his arm in a familiar manner, which must have been 
about as agreeable to his taste as the attentions of a 
policeman when making an arrest, and proceed to 
business." 

Something was missing just there, and he told us 
that two little girls mustered courage to call upon 
the dreadful personage, and read on : — 

'' She then ushered her visitors into the little front 
room — they were not parlors in those days unless 
possessed of certain attractions unknown to people 
of moderate circumstances — and kindly inquired 
their business, appearing exceedingly gratified when 
she found that they merely wished to look at her, 
and be shown her printing office. 0, sweet meed of 
fame ! 

She took them into her work-room, and showed 


AN OLD DIART AND A NEW DIARY. 269 


them the printing press and stands of type, explain- 
ing everything to them ; and in the meantime the 
little, sharp eyes were investigating her also. 

“ They found her a tall, angular woman, with a 
masculine manner, but a face gentle enough as she 
was entertaining them. Her costume, then as al- 
ways, was a clean calico gown, fashioned with a re- 
markably short waist, rejoicing in what was known 
as a ' coffin-back,’ and confined, somewhere between 
the waist line and the arm- pits, by a cord with tas- 
sels; the whole farther embellished by perfectly 
immense ‘ balloon sleeves.’ On her head she wore 
a cap, with a towering crown, making her tall form 
look taller still, and a very full frill framing her 
face. 

Mrs. Koyal’s paper was edited, printed and pub- 
lished in the small back room into which she ushered 
her little interviewers, within the unpretending, 
picketed cottage, almost beneath the shadow of the 
Capitol; and on publication day, the secretary, maid- 
of-all-work and factotum-in-general, Sally, sallied 
forth with a market basket full on her arm, to de- 
liver to the subscribers.” 

Then Mr. Maze, who is quick with his pencil. 


270 


TIIIIEE-AND-T WENTY, 


asked cousin Leah for paper, and with all our heads 
bobbing about him, he drew the first woman editor, 
with her short-waisted gown, cord and tassels, bal- 
loon sleeves, and cap with a towering crown ; and 
then he sketched a modern figure, tall, too, and also 
with the nowaday big sleeves, but it was cousin 
Leah herself, just the way she carries her head, and 
we all shouted. 

Now draw yourself,” she said. 

And he made the smallest man, with his head 
reaching to cousin Leah’s waist. 

Cousin Leah was angry ; she did not smile, and 
before anybody could hinder, she snatched the paper 
and tore it into pieces. 


A SECRET AND A REVELATION. 271 


XVIII. 

A SECRET AND A REVELATION. 

" Not yours, but you, is the formula of Christ, seeking you 
for your own sake, and because your life is greater than your 
life-work. 

— Charles Cuthbert Hall. 

“ I haven’t done many wrong things to-day,” re- 
marked Pheann. 

" But how many right things have you done ? ” 
inquired her companion ; “ not how much chaff is in 
you, but whether you have any wheat ? ” 

“ Two, three, perhaps four,” was the serious reply, 
as Pheann stood gazing out of the window of the 
Nook down the hill to her own home. 

Her cousin persisted in calling the new house 
Pheann’s House,” and rebuked her once when she 
spoke of it as Miss Leah’s.” 

“That is a snug little home of your mother’s, 
down there,” he said. 

“ And she clings to it more and more every day,” 


272 


THEEE-AND-TWENTY, 


Pheann answered, disappointedly. ‘‘ I didn’t know 
that I was hoping so hard for her to change her 
mind until last night, when she said, with a look, 
half ashamed, at me, that she hoped she would never 
have to leave it. And I made a vow then, and there, 
that she never should.” 

Take care,” he warned, vows are dangerous 
things.” 

'' That is not dangerous — to her,” Pheann laughed. 
She was learning the difference between ‘"things,” 
and “people,” and learning (without knowing it) 
which she loved better. 

“You have not given me your attention for full 
five minutes ; I have wasted my breath in reading 
Thackeray to you. Eemember this : ‘ There is no 
distinct thinking, no vivid feeling, no deliberate ac- 
tion without attention.’ ” 

“ Must I have them all immediately ? My distinct 
thinking is that you are very tiresome, my vivid 
feeling that I don’t like you one bit to-day, and my de- 
liberate action will be to start immediately for home.” 

“ Not till I have kept you a while longer. Why 
did you not go with Miss Leah and the girls up 
Forest Hill after wild flowers ? 


A SECRET AND A REVELATION, 273 


That is one of the things I did that was good,” 
Pheann replied with smiling triumph. “I stayed 
with mother ; I came here for one of Mrs. Eitchie’s 
books to read to her, and you have kept me away 
from her half an hour.” 

For your own good.” 

“ Now is the hour of my victory.” Pheann clapped 
her hands. That repays me for all the hard speeches 
you made that night you walked down the lane with 
me. How 111 forgive you. Now I would give you 
a rose instead of a thorn.” 

Oh, I made use of the thorn,” he said carelessly. 
Pheann’s face was radiant; she sprang toward 
him and whispered low : “ I know your secret now'' 
He caught her by the wrist and held her fast : 
“ 111 never forgive you if you tell ! ” 

“ I will not,” she promised, hurt by his lack of 
confidence. “ I promise you I never will. How could 
I help recognizing those buds and roses, and that 
girl ? And you have written all those strong articles 
since, that Miss Leah says is the making of her paper ; 
I knew it ; I know you better than she does ; I know 
you better than anybody," and thinking that she 
loved him better than anybody loved him. 


274 


THREE-AND-TWENTY, 


'' I believe it — almost/' he said ; '' you are a dear 
child, I can trust you with my secret.” 

Pheann was keeping another secret of his; this 
she dared not whisper in his ear ; she knew how he 
loved Leah Eitchie. 

You shall wear the Cross of the Legion of Honor, 
Pheann,” he said, lightly. 

''I do,” she said, '"it is your confidence.” She 
could not say, she was too moved to put into common 
phrase, how fine she thought he was, to give the best 
of himself to a woman's paper, when in her girlish 
pride in him, she was sure he might make a name 
for himself in journalism. 

Miss Leah had told the girls that she received 
many letters about these articles and had filed 
them away to show to the Small Unknown when 
she discovered her. ‘‘My associate editor,” was 
the name she gave to her unknown helper. 

All this was sparkling in Pheann’s eyes as she 
looked at the associate editor stretched on the 
couch in the Nook. 

Her mother had said that day that cousin Gil- 
bert was growing old, and would be an invalid 
some day, in a wheel-chair like herself, perhaps. 


A SECBET AND A BEVELATION, 275 


With all her passionate young heart Pheann 
prayed God that this thing might not be. As she 
stood in her beauty and strength looking doAvn at 
the slight figure curled up like a boy’s on the red 
couch, and the face illumined with deep-set eyes 
growing more like love’s own every day, her heart 
cried out again in vehement protest that this thing 
might never happen to him. 

How could Miss Leah help — But then, he 
might never have dared, he felt himSelf such a 
poor thing, and so forlorn. 

He was so old now, it must be too late, she 
thought, watching his face as he drew the afghan to 
his chin and shut his eyes as though he were glad 
to keep them shut. 

The thick hair pushed back from his forehead 
was very grey, his heavy eyebrows were as black 
as black could be, his moustache was as grey as 
his hair, his cheeks were sunken, there were lines 
on his forehead ; as she stood looking down at 
him she pitied him and admired him — she would 
be glad if Miss Leah loved him. Miss Leah had 
grey in her hair, too ; she wished she could make 
Miss Leah love him and not care so much to talk 


276 


THREE- A ND- T WEN T F. 


to that handsome Dr. Vreeland who called every 
day to see Mrs. Ritchie. 

Life is criss-cross,” she exclaimed aloud in such 
a miserable tone that Gilbert opened his eyes to 
smile at her. 

It is — rather,” he assented, “ but you are not 
to know it for years yet — your time hasn’t come.” 

“ I see other people’s time.” 

The postman’s whistle heralded more than two 
handfuls of letters and papers for the editor of 
The Homemaker, Pheann took them up-stairs to 
the editor’s desk, then hurried home with the book 
to read aloud to her mother until bedtime. The 
book was the Life of Mrs, Isabella Grraham; 
Pheann peeped into it and groaned. Who could 
find anything for girls to-day in such dusty old 
things ? She had finished the Life of Mrs, 
Joanna Bethune,^ Mrs. Graham’s daughter, and 
found it stupid reading — the mother delighted 
in the story of spiritual longings : the girl was all 
alert for outside things and doings. 

At dusk, just as Gilbert was awaking from his 
nap on the couch of the Nook and deciding that he 
must go home to supper, and not be too often 


A SECBET AND A REVELATION. 277 


tempted to stay to supper in Pheann’s house, the 
lady of Pheann’s house pushed aside the portiere 
and entered with a long envelope of rough paper in 
her hand, with a typewritten address that sent the 
blood to his cheek, and gave to his heart the un- 
easy sensation that, as he sometimes put it to him- 
self, he was living to keep away from it. The 
sensation that would worry Leah, if she knew, but 
which she would never know from his mortal lips. 

‘‘You have been asleep,” she said. 

He closed his eyes with a movement of impa- 
tience ; it was the very tone in which she would 
have spoken to her mother. Had he grown sud- 
denly so old and so broken that she dared to show 
fondness for him? Fondness stung him deeper than 
scorn. 

“What have you been thinking about?” she 
asked, drawing a chair near the lounge and keep- 
ing the torn, open envelope in her hand. 

“ My sins.,'' was the unexpected answer, as he 
opened his eyes full upon her face. 

With a rush of deep feeling she was tempted to 
answer lightly, but instead opened the rough en- 
velope and brought out the typewritten sheets. 


278 


THREE-AND-TWENTY. 


“ Let me read you something that struck me in 
my associate editor. You know my associate 
editor.” 

‘‘ Your typewriter girl?” 

“ Yes, if you will. Only she has a width and 
grasp of outlook that I fail to attain with all my 
striving.” 

“ ‘ Width of outlook ’ is good,” he answered 
seriously, ‘‘ especially if she has to grasp it.” 

You always will make fun — of her, or of me. 
But listen.” 

Yesterday she would not have thought he would 
care to listen to such words : — 

You cannot bear to look at your sins ? Why 
should you ? They are cast behind God’s back. 
Would you not rather look into his face — the 
face of Jesus Christ? Is it not a comfort to be- 
lieve that the sins God allowed you to sin were 
the very best sins for you ? ” 

“ But your sins may not be the best for other 
people. I think I do not care much for myself 
now-a-days; I have had enough of it; not even 
about my sins. I wonder at myself for speaking 


so. 


A SECRET AND A REVELATION. 


279 


“ That is a happy way for somebody to look at 
it.’’ 

‘‘Yes, if somebody really does — longer than 
the time taken to write it.” 

“ Don’t be a skeptic,” said Leah, hurt and angry. 

“ About people’s feelings. Oh, we all long for 
that sort of thing in our best moods. But we 
cannot command our moods. If you listen to the 
words of Arab songs you will always hear allu- 
sions to verdure, and refreshing shades, and bub- 
bling rivulets, something which the singer has not, 
and yet his heart longs for.” 

Impatient with his present mood she rolled the 
sheets up in her hand, then, remembering the type- 
setter, hastily unrolled and smoothed them out. 

“ You would miss your associate editor,” he re- 
marked after a pause. 

“ I should, indeed. For how many years have 
I had these editorials ; Mrs. Brown and some 
other people tell me they are the finest things in 
my paper. In three exchanges last week I saw 
extracts from the latest one. Mrs. Brown calls 
them my romance.” 

“Your paper is doing well?” he asked, with 
languid interest. 


280 


THREE-ANB-TWENTY. 


“ Mrs. Brown thinks so. She gives me counsel ; 
my associate editor sends me copy. We pay better 
for our articles than more than one or two more 
pretentious papers, I have discovered. Before the 
war our subscription list was large, for a paper of 
this character, Mrs. Brown says. The Southern 
subscription was large. 

‘‘ You like the work better than raising roses, 
then? ” 

‘‘Dr. Vreeland has been telling me about Rose- 
acres. How long you have kept your secret ! ” 

“ It was worth keeping. A secret is about the 
only thing that is.” 

“ And worth telling,” she replied. “ Gilbert, I 
know only the outside of you,” she said, with con- 
trition. 

“ The best part,” he said lazily. “ Don’t take 
down my shutters.” 

“ I will not,” she said, laughing ; “ it is too hard 
work, and the view of the interior not promising.” 

“ You never had any shutters.” 

“ Don’t you think I am growing some ? ” 
“Don’t you dare. I should see through, any- 
way. Have you never seen a crescent cut in old- 
fashioned shutters.” 


A SECRET AND A REVELATION. 


281 


“ But that is for the dwellers in the house, not 
for outside intruders. I saw it once — up high.” 

Leah, I do not know why I am in such a peni- 
tent mood to-day, — but I know the outride of me is 
rough and jagged, and overgrown with fungi ; the 
friction of life has roughened instead of rubbed it 
off — ” Then he broke off abruptly : 

‘‘ I have been reading about some lady horticul- 
turists : they did considerable grafting. It is a 
curious taste, but the roses most admired were a 
small, almost black rose, with the faintest carnation 
flush, and a tiny green thing, and one of orange 
color. They gave these queens of the rose-garden 
a place to themselves, and the most delicate care. 
I will take you to Roseacres to-morrow, if you will 
go. I am quite up in roses.” 

With painful hesitation, she rubbed her fingers 
over the rough surface of the brown envelope, 
seeing indistinctly her name in typewritten char- 
acters. 

You have never seen my Root House,” he ran 
on, joyously. “ I read about the house John How- 
ard had in his garden, made of the trunks and 
roots of trees, and my big Scotch boys built one 


28 a 


THItEE-ANB^TWENTY. 


for me. It is my study, my retreat, my every- 
thing when the world goes awry. A three-year- 
old there is my playmate ; we have jolly good 
times together. He wdll carry all his life the bur- 
den of my name, but he is unaware of it ; at pre- 
sent, he is plain ‘Bertie.’ A sturdy Scotchman, as 
fearless as a natural childhood always is. His 
father insists that he will run into danger some 
day; still he glories in his spunk. We both held 
our breath one day last week when we discovered 
him on the roof of the barn ; I took a handful of 
silver out of my pocket and whistled softly ; the 
shining things in my hand were attraction enough ; 
he came down by himself as safely as he went up.” 

“ But to bring him down with such an induce- 
ment,” said Leah, teasingly. 

“Well, it was all I happened to have in my 
pocket at the time ; he is too accustomed to flowers 
or rusks. We have the most confldential conversa- 
tions ; I look into his big, blue eyes and tell him 
what the world is like, and how much happier he is 
at Roseacres than to be roving about.” 

“ And he believes every word.” 

“ Not quite as surely as I do ; but he will when 


A SECRET AND A REVELATION. 283 


life has been as long. Leah, you and I are growing 
up ; we are not the young things we used to be.” 

‘‘I feel it with these three girls about me — 
such bright, pretty, winsome girls.” 

‘‘ And you have outgrown all that nonsense,” he 
said with more admiration than for years he had 
allowed himself to speak to her. Somehow, she 
seemed not quite so far off to-night. 

“ I cannot ever call you Sweet-and-T^venty 
again,” he ran on, as if forgetting that he ventured 
upon dangerous ground; ‘‘how will Wise-and- 
Thirty do ? ” 

“Anything but that,” she pleaded; “these girls 
bewilder me with questions every day.” 

“ Still, allow me to quote something written 
about Browning : ‘ None of his instincts grew old. 
Long as he lived (older than Wise-and-Thirty, I 
grant), he did not live long enough for one of his 
ideals to vanish.’ Do you remember you begged 
me to let you keep your ideal of marriage? ” 

“ Yes,” murmured Leah, flushing, with her eyes 
upon the rough envelope in her hand. 

“ Have you kept it ? ” 

“ Yes,” she said, the brown in her eyes glowing. 


284 


THBEE-ANB-TWENTY. 


as she gave him a fearless glance ; “ even Wise-and- 
Fifty shall keep that.” 

“ I believe it,” he said. I will try to be glad.” 

‘‘ It keeps me glad.” 

‘‘I believe that, also. Your work in the world 
is pure womanly. Grandmother would be glad to 
know about it. I think of her often, — her love of 
knowledge, her push, her zeal for you — that is 
what made the difference to her, and kept her 
bank-book intact.” 

Poor bank-book. It was used up years ago.” 

‘‘ She would say it is only put into circulation.” 

‘‘ Thank you. You are good to say that. I 
am down-hearted enough over my work, so often, 
and then comes a word of cheer, that is like a 
cheer^ from somebody. I cannot find my associate 
editor to tell her what her work is to me. Several 
times I have put a note in a corner of The Home- 
maker^ knowing she could not but understand, but 
never a reply does she make ; if only a word of 
personal understanding would come sometimes in 
these big envelopes, I would be so glad. I am sure 
she cares for The Homemaker and its editor. I 
am glad money is so little to her ; that she does 


A SECRET AND A REVELALION. 


285 


not have to work for it. My ideal life is a life of 
work for work’s sake, and for humanity’s sake, 
with no thought of money.” 

“ Like Browning’s. He was afraid to be idle. 
Having all his days for himself, he did not dare use 
them for himself. That is fine. Still, I think 
the man or woman who earns money and uses it, 
has a happiness that he has not who has no need 
of earning it to spend for himself, or give to 
others. Think how you enjoy that dress because 
you earned it.” 

‘‘ That is certainly true. But I have to think 
of money when I should be thinking of better 
things,” she said, keeping money-worry out of her 
voice. 

That is your own look-out.” 

“ I know it,” she said humbly. 

Behind that, the joy of earning is meant to be 
a joy, and don’t lose it through any false notions.” 

“ I am glad you do not know all my false no- 
tions. I think I do see it differently about earn- 
ing money. Mother and I both enjoy pay-day. 
Chase had the old farm, you know, and that is 
gone ; grandmother’s house did not bring much, it 


286 


THREE- AND- T WEN TF. 


was SO out of repair, and I earned nothing until 
Mrs. Brown put me on The Homemaker. There 
were a few debts to pay for Chase. But we are 
proud of him now, — he is a good man, and has a 
good wife and lovely children.” 

There was small promise of that in that Liver- 
pool hospital, thought his Liverpool friend. 

And you are a serious woman-of-business, with 
white in your brown hair, and cannot longer say : 
‘We gMs.’ ” 

“I believe that,” she answered with the utmost 
seriousness ; “ I am a girl to no one but my mother. 
It would be hard for mother to lose her little girl.” 

“And for me. You will always be a girl to 
me. Chickadee.” 

“ That is comforting, when one is not quite 
ready to leave youth behind ; but I do have to be 
so wise in The Homemaker^'' with a laugh that was 
half a sigh. 

“ But you are not anywhere else ; you are not a 
grave and reverend editor to me this minute, even 
with that thing in your hand.” 

“ And this threatened rent in my shoe that I am 
guarding tenderly until pay-day,” she said with a 


A SECRET AND A REVELATION. 287 


laugh, hiding her shoe under the ruffle of her 
skirt. 

“You have no grandmother now to send Gilbert 
Maze with a pair of shoes.” 

“ I am my own grandmother,” with a saucy toss 
of the brown head. 

“ That is the trouble with you,” he said with a 
frown. 

“Aren’t you glad you can put your finger on 
it ? ” with such a saucy look of good fellowship 
that he grew audacious. 

“ I wish I could keep my finger on it. I have a 
rose-leaf left for your shoeing.” 

“I would like your roses to do better things 
than that,” she said more lightly than she felt. 

“ My roses are doing better things — you would 
call it better things. The superintendent of a 
school-house Sunday school came to look at my 
roses, and orchards, and truck patch — from roses 
to a truck patch, but people must eat, and every 
taste is not for roses — he asked me to take a class 
in his backwoods school; there are bright boys in 
that neighborhood, as bright as Chase used to be, 
and just about as ready to pitch into life. 


288 


THREE- ANB-TWENTY, 


‘‘‘ I am out of practice,’ I replied ; ‘it is years 
since I had a class. I have forgotten how to 
teach.’ 

“ ‘ That’s a pity,’ he said. ‘ That class of boys 
needs the help of a man who has lived a boy’s life. 
They want a teacher who will be sympathetic with 
them.’ 

“ The next Saturday I went to a ball game. Per- 
haps some one of those growing boys, of whom the 
superintendent had spoken, who needed the help 
of a man who had lived a boy’s life, would be there. 

“ There was a bright fellow on the seat behind 
me, and another, with an intellectual face and eyes 
that meant will as well as emotion, beside me. I 
thought I would open a conversation with them, 
but I was ashamed. It would be no trouble to talk 
to them now on one subject. I was in practice in 
baseball talk. But in other things in which a man 
might help a boy I was out of practice. 

“ ‘ That is not the game,’ said a lady’s voice near 
me ; ‘ what are they doing? ’ 

“ ‘ Oh, only keeping in practice.’ 

“ ‘ But do they need it — such fine players ? ’ 
she asked. ‘ At the last moment, too.’ 


A SECBET AND A REVELATION. 289 


‘ That is what makes such fine players,’ he said. 

‘‘ ^ They look in good training,’ she said. 

“ ‘ In good training, and excellent practice,’ he 
replied. 

‘‘ ‘ It seems to be worth while — in baseball,’ she 
said. 

“ There was a cheer at something just then, but I 
missed the cause of it ; I was hearing St. Paul say 
something; I do not know exactly what it was, 
and I did not know then. 

‘‘ The problem of how help was to come to two or 
three wild boys in the Roseacres neighborhood had 
been puzzling me for a year or two. These boys 
and St. Paul, and keeping in practice, were making 
such a confusion in my brain that I forgot to cheer 
when my favorite pitcher arrived. 

“ ‘ Fine playing,’ remarked somebody at my el- 
bow. 

“‘Yes, I think I’ll do it,’ I replied. At which 
he stared and I apologized. 

“ The next Sunday after service I told my friend, 
the superintendent, that I would take that class of 
boys. ‘ If I don’t tell them anything else, Pll tell 
them to keep in practice.^ ” 


290 


TEHEE- A NE-TWENTY. 


“ Gilbert, you make me ashamed.” 

“ That’s jolly,” he exclaimed ; feel so some 
more.” 

“ Perhaps I need a ball game to awaken in me a 
deeper sense of responsibility.” 

You certainly need something to awaken some- 
thing,” he said, amused. 

I know it more than you can tell me. I am 
growing anxious, about one of my responsibilities, 
little Sarah Field. Her mother, her society-loving 
mother, was glad enough to shift her responsibility 
to me — old maid as I am, and I’m afraid she 
isn’t happy.” 

‘‘ Her mother ? ” 

“ Oh, she’s always happy when she is spending 
money, and has no care. But Sarah isn’t happy. 
She eludes me, slips through my fingers ; there’s 
something I cannot touch. O, girls,” with a sigh, 
and a laugh. ‘‘ And now, if you have lost so much 
money, I shall have to be worried about you. You 
haven’t lost that aristocratic block in Maze Street 
that was the delight of my heart. You must have 
been wondrously reckless and extravagant.” 

‘‘The houses have gone into something more 


A SECRET AND A REVELATION. 291 


durable, I hope. The people in those houses could 
find homes for themselves.” 

“ But I don’t like to think of you as a poor man. 
You, child of luxury, you don’t know how to be 
poor. You have traveled first-class all your life.” 

‘‘ On this couch, with you beside me, is rather first- 
class still. So is my ‘ swan’s nest among the reeds,’ 
which I will show you to-morrow if you will drive 
to Roseacres with me.” 

Fumbling, like the nervous woman she was not, 
with the thing in her hand, she said with sharp 
distinctness: “I have promised Dr. Vreeland to 
drive with him.” 

It was the cruel truth ; but how could she with- 
hold it? How could she explain that it meant 
nothing at all ? 

“ Is that all you have promised him, Leah ? ” 

He brought himself to his feet, staggered, and 
fell back. His strange question was unheeded ; 
she was startled by his sudden pallor. 

“Excuse me,” he said; “I have been cramped 
too long in one position.” 

“ Will you not stay to supper?” she asked, fit- 
ting a pillow to his shoulders with a pitiful touch. 


292 


THEEE-AND--TWENTY. 


“Not to-night. I want to see my lawyer; I 
must give Plieann a legal right to her house. I 
am not a rich man any longer, Leah; are you 
glad?” 

“Is your money lost ? ” 

“Not lost altogether and finally, I hope; but it 
is gone from me. When I have given this house 
to Pheann, and my mothers old home to Philip 
Vreeland, Roseacres alone will remain to me. 
Roseacres and income sufficient for a man with my 
few wants.” 

“ But you will not give up that dear old house ? 
That house full of stories — there’s no place like 
it in the world to me.” 

“Oh, Phil will let me stay there,” he said, 
bringing himself again to his feet. “ I want these 
few things settled. I have fought long enough 
for my life.” 

“ But, will Roseacres keep you in the luxury 
you are accustomed to ? ” 

“ In as much luxury as I want. I would like 
you to see Roseacres. I never brought you roses 
from Roseacres, because it was my secret.” 

“ And I was not in a hospital,” she said. 


A SECBET AND A REVELATION. 


293 


“ I thought you would like that,” he replied as 
simply as a girl would have spoken to another 
girl. 

‘‘I do like it. But you cannot give them away 
now, if that is all you have left,” she said, in her 
practical voice. 

He often told her she was ‘‘ a bread-and-butter 
girl.” 

“ I shall keep a rose-leaf to feed on ; I do not 
relish starving any more than you do. I may be- 
come a hermit, but there’s nothing of the martyr 
in me.” 

‘‘ O, God,” he groaned, that midnight, alone in 
his snuggery, I have tried to do my best, and 
thou hast not noticed it.” 

He hated Philip Vreeland ; he rebelled against 
God. 

Was his life, with all its years of ‘‘bodily disci- 
pline,” a failure ? Not a failure if God had had 
his way. Was it a failure to Mm if God had had 
his way? 


294 


THBEE-A ED-TWENTY. 


XIX. 

THE “ SHUT DOOR.” 

“ Lord, I have shut my door ! 

Come thou and visit me, I am alone.” 

— M. E. Atkinson. 

The next day Gilbert Maze asked Pheann to 
go to New York with him ; in his lawyer’s office 
he placed in her hands all the legal documents that 
gave the property known to them as “Pheann’s 
House ” to her and her heirs forever. 

Miss Leah is your tenant, now,” he remarked 
on the way home. ‘‘ You will have to settle about 
that between you. But your old house is becom- 
ing so uninhabitable with that leaky roof, that I 
would advise your mother to put no more money 
on it, but move straight up into Pheann’s House. 
The dampness of that old cellar is bad, or good, 
for her rheumatism.” 

‘‘ If you only could induce her to think so.” 

“ Something must induce her before long. Should 


THE SHUT Boon: 


295 


we press the doctor and minister into our ser- 
vice?” 

“ And it will not be my doing, or my urging, or 
my tantrum?” asked Pheann, almost tearful. 

“Not a bit of it. It is my tantrum, this time.” 

“ I think she will listen to Mr. Leavenworth. 
When he talks to her she sits with her hands 
folded in her lap, and listens as if she were in 
church. We were so afraid he wouldn’t accept 
the call, the church is run down, and the salary so 
small; but such a thing happened. There was a 
gift made to the church for this emergency, and the 
interest is always to be for the pastor’s salary. I 
think it must be the same rich man who gave the 
new communion service, and had new furnaces put 
in. We are so glad about Mr. Leavenworth. I 
didn’t think I ever could love that church. But, 
if that stranger, — I suppose he is a stranger, — is 
willing to do so much for it, how much more I 
ought to love my grandfather’s church.” 

She stopped confused : it was his grandfather’s 
church, also. Was she suggesting to him that he, 
with all his money, should love this church as 
well as this stranger? 


296 


TnnEE-AND-TWENTT, 


But he was so splendid to her, how could she 
mind if he were not generous to other people? 
She loved him for what he was to herself. She 
had not thought of him as a citizen of the world. 

There was other legal work done that day : Gilbert 
Maze made his will ; his mother’s house he be- 
queathed to Philip Vreeland, and Roseacres to 
Philip Vreeland' s wife, 

‘‘ But he has no wife,” remonstrated the lawyer, 
who was a friend of Philip Vreeland’s. ‘‘ It is a 
crazy will.” 

‘‘ I may be a crazy man ; but it shall be that 
way or no way.” 

‘‘ Suppose you die before he is married ? ” 
Suppose he is married before I die ? ” 

“ Have you taken a new lease of life ? ” 

If I live much longer, I shall have to.” 

Be a sensible man, and put the girl’s name in, 
give it to her in her own right ; you do not know 
what mischief you may do, and you will not be al- 
lowed to come back and repair it.” 

‘‘ No, I shall not,” Gilbert Maze, remarked, 
thoughtfully and it would go hard with me if I 
could not come back. Put the girl’s name in, then. 


THE SHUT boor: 


297 


and strike out Philip Vreeland’s wife. It was a fool- 
ish thing to attempt ; I thought I had outlived my 
romantic days. I am going to Roseacres to-morrow 
to get on my feet again ; I’ve been rather knocked 
over this last week.” 

‘‘ What is her name ? ” the lawyer asked in gruff 
sympathy. 

Leah Ritchie,” with sharp promptness. 

His little girl who loved roses, and had told 
him about the rose-gardens of Memphis, should have 
roses enough to satisfy her all her life long. Lit- 
tle Brown Riding Hood, grandmother’s Chick- 
adee. 


298 


THREE-AND-'TWENTY. 


XX. 

SANDS OF GOLD. 

“ Life’s latest sands are its sands of gold.” 

— Julia C. R. Dorr. 

‘‘This is the very best one I’ve had,” was the 
editor’s happy exclamation. 

Sarah Field looked np from her sewing; the 
quiet girl was never an interruption. Leah said 
her presence in the study was one of her inspira- 
tions. 

“ The best editorial from my ‘ typewriter girl,’ 
as Mr. Maze persists in naming my right-hand. 
Think of being the possessor of a literary secret.” 

“ But what will you do if she fails you ; she may 
die, or be married.” 

“ I will not think of such a possibility ; I know 
her secret will out, some day. I hope she isn’t 
poor, and needing the money.” 

“ Why must it be a girl ? ” asked Sarah, who had 


1 


SANDS OF GOLD. 


299 


woven a romance out of the threads of the right- 
hand weaving. 

‘‘ I have thought no one but a woman would do 
such a thing ; she is certainly not working for 
money, or fame. Somebody is putting me under 
an obligation. I am so sure to have all the ques- 
tions of the day written up for me with a clear 
head, and strong and graceful style, that it is not 
good for me ; I relax, when I should be alert. 
Mrs. Brown told me yesterday that she never had 
such help. She warns jne not to depend too 
much on an accidental thing.” 

The busy pen moved on, and the needle made 
pretty stitches in the white dress for a little grand- 
daughter, which Mrs. Ritchie left unfinished the 
morning Gilbert Maze stopped at the door with his 
recently purchased grey span and asked her to 
drive with him to Roseacres. The day’s visit had 
extended into one week, and then another ; Mrs. 
Ritchie wrote to Leah that she was enchanted, and 
positively could not leave the place ; Gilbert was 
urging her to stay all summer, and she was thinking 
of it seriously. If Leah could do without her. 

Elizabeth Dare was with Mary Ashton. Sarah 


300 


THTIEE-ANB^T WENTY. 


was afraid Mary Ashton had bewitched her, and 
was grieving over what might grow out of this 
week with the ‘‘missionary enthusiast,” as she re- 
belliously thought of her. 

Leah looked up again from her writing, this 
time to think how sweet and fair was this girl be- 
side her ; how womanly she had grown ; how help- 
ful she was becoming. 

Her work was done, and in the spring twilight 
she was musing with both elbows on her desk, 
when Sarah gave a smothered and startled excla- 
mation in reply to the tap at the door, then went 
to Leah and touched her shoulder. 

“ Cousin Leah, you must go. Dr. Vreeland has 
sent for you. Mr. Maze has been hurt.” 

Leah arose quietly, dressed for her drive, kissed 
Sarah and gave orders to her housekeeper. “ You 
may stay with Pheann,” she remembered to say to 
Sarah. 

It was very dark when the carriage drove into 
the lane of Roseacres. 

Philip Vreeland met her at the door; he held 
both her hands in his own as he told her in fewest 
words the story of the accident. 


SANDS OF GOLD. 


301 


That child he cared for had broken away 
from him and was playing in the middle of the 
road, when a frightened horse, with a carriage 
partly smashed, had dashed down the road upon 
the boy; somehow Gilbert had gotten to him and 
saved him, but he was thrown down and had been 
brought in unconscious ; for twelve hours he had 
remained unconscious. He asked if the boy were 
safe, and then had known no more. The shock to 
the nerves was the great thing. 

He did not send for me then, or mother ? ” 

I sent for you ; I want him to see, with his first 
recognizing look, a face he cares for.” 

“ Can you do anything for him ? ” 

‘‘ He takes medicine.” 

‘‘He will see your face, Dr. Vreeland.” 

“ But that will not be your face.” 

The Scotch woman unfastened her wraps and 
brought her a cup of tea. Her mother was in the 
sick-room. 

“ You must see my baby. My baby that is safe. 
The baby he gave his life for.” 

The child was in his crib, ruddy, warm, and 
asleep. Leah kissed him; it was easier than to 
speak any words to his mother. 


302 


THBEE-ANB-TWENTY, 


In the gray morning, after her mother and Dr. 
Vreeland had watched all night, he came to her 
door and said she might go to Gilbert. The face 
upon the pillow was white and drawn ; the hand 
outside the counterpane was still — still, and yet 
it had not lost its look of strength. Dr. Vreeland 
placed her in a chair near the pillow and went out, 
shutting the door. 

‘‘ Life has been good drill,” said Gilbert, open- 
ing his eyes upon her face. Kiss my hand, will 
you?” 

She touched his hand lightly with her soft, 
warm, red lips. 

‘‘ I was not good enough for you,” he murmured. 

“ No,” she said ; You were too good^'" 

In the sudden lighting of his face she thought 
the sunshine had shot across the room. 

“ That’s all I wanted,” he said. It would have 
been good enough to live for — if I had not had 
something better.” 

Not trusting herself to reply, if reply she had, 
she touched his hand again with her lips. With 
the softest sigh he closed his eyes. 

All that day and the next, with intervals for 


SANDS or GOLD, 


303 


rest and fresh air, which Dr. Vreeland insisted 
upon, with her mother she kept watch in the room 
of the silent man. He was content to lie still ; he 
told Leah he had all he wanted in the world. 

Another day as she sat beside him, he opened his 
eyes with a flash of humor. 

“ It was an impulse, you know ; if I had had 
time to think, I shouldn’t have done it.” 


304 


THREE-AND-TWENTT. 


XIL 

“INSTEAD.” 

“There is in man a higher than love of happiness: he can do 
without happiness, and instead thereof find blessedness.” 

— Carlyle. 

After ten days Dr. Vreeland drove her home ; 
after ten days of waiting ; for there was little else 
for her to do. Dr. Vreeland was nurse night and 
day, as well as physician. After ten days he was 
satisfied to leave his patient in the care of Mrs. 
Ritchie. There was not only hope that he would 
live, but that he would regain his usual vigor. 
Leah had promised to come to Roseacres for vaca- 
tion in August. 

‘‘ Miss Leah,” said Philip Vreeland on that drive 
home, ‘‘I am a blunt kind of a fellow ; I never did 
know how to say the right thing in the right way; 
but I know I have the right thing to say now, and 
you Avill be kind enough to let the Avay speak for 
itself. I know our friend as well as I know my- 


instead: 


305 


self — which, perhaps, is a way of saying that I do 
not know him at all. In his bewilderment — and 
he is usually clear-headed, — he has imagined that 
you and I — you understand. Miss Leah ; but you 
and I know better, and are neither of us ready to 
sacrifice ourselves even to carry out his pretty little 
romance.” 

It was nearly dusk, Leah’s lap was full of roses 
which Gilbert had sent to Pheann’s mother; at 
this moment a handful was lifted to shield her 
face. 

After all these years for him to make a pretty 
romance about her, 

“ You will not allow it to make any difference, 
will you ? We must be together, because we must 
be with him. You are an older friend to him than 
I. If it does embarrass you I can easily manage — ” 
he said in a voice without a particle of sentiment 
in it. 

“ There is no need for anyone to ‘manage,’ ” she 
answered, quietly ; “ I am not very easily embar- 
rassed, and most surely not by a condition of 
things that is pure imagination. We will both 
think of our friend.” 


306 


THREE^ANB^TWENTY, 


Thank you,” was the reply, in a tone of evi- 
dent relief. “ I wish I could carry your roses for 
you ; anyway,” with a boyish laugh, “ I have tried 
to take care of the thorns.” 

‘‘ And succeeded perfectly,” she replied in a tone 
that had his ears been more sensitive, he might 
have considered sarcastic. 

Words unheeded at the time they were spoken 
flashed out in the light of this embarrassing expla- 
nation : “ Is that all you have promised him^ 

Leah?^^ 

Did Gilbert Maze desire it?* Was he working 
to this end? Had he thrown her at Dr. Vreeland’s 
head, and had he thrown her back thus — upon 
herself ? 

‘‘ Gilbert has wonderful vitality,” were the next 
words of Gilbert’s physician. ‘‘Nash was mistaken 
years ago ; who can tell how a man’s heart will be- 
have? ” 

“Dr. Nash told me — ” 

'‘Oh, you have known it then. I thought you 
were wonderfully kind to him.” 

" He has been a great deal to us from my child- 
hood,” was the low reply behind the roses. 


instead: 


307 


If ever a man on earth knows how to be a friend 
he knows how. I told him one day, ‘ Gilbert Maze, 
A Friend,' was all the inscription his bit of stone 
will need. He said it would not need Gilhert Maze. 
That was nothing in the world. It is a great deal 
to the hundred more or less hoys and men, young, 
and old, he keeps up a correspondence with ; they 
are invalids, mostly, or discouraged ; hampered in 
some way. How he finds them out is an enigma to 
me. 

“ Himself is the enigma to me,” replied Leah, who 
in the nearness of the last ten days, had with stead- 
fast gaze looked through the windows of Gilbert 
Maze, and, more than once with hesitating tread 
had crossed his threshold. 

He withholds his best self," was Philip’s reply. 
“ I think he would rather be blamed than praised, and 
have a gun shot at him rather than gratitude. * Self- 
consciousness with all its curses ’ has been the bane 
of his life.” 

Has leeUy* repeated Leah, allowing her lapful of 
roses to stay untampered with ; '' is he so unlike him- 
self that you speak of him in the past ? ” 

‘‘He is unlike himself; you will find him so. 


308 


THREE- AN D-TWENTY. 


Something by that shock to the nerves has been 
shocked out of him, or shocked into him. I have 
great hopes of his future.” 

He has no money to work with ; he told me he 
had lost it, and had only a competence left — a rose- 
leaf left to live on.” 

''He has not told me that he has lost money. 
Are you sure you understood ? ” Philip questioned, 
anxious and perplexed. 

" I am not sure of anything he said that day ; but 
I think he said that.” 

That mood of his that day; would it ever come 
again ? Would his "pretty romance ” hinder her feet 
upon his very threshold. 

Was sending her to drive with Philip, the nurse 
and the physician, one of the threads of this pretty 
weaving ? 

Eeminiscences of Philip, his boyhood, his college 
work, their travel abroad, had formed half his talk ; 
was it that he might watch her way of listening ? 

Even her mother had — was her mother also de- 
ceived ? Or, were the two linked together ? Against 
her — the two she loved best, and could not live 
without. Eoseacres, companionship, study, the Eoot 


INSTEAD. 


309 


House for a hiding-place — and all the world for one’s 
field of work and thought and prayer and hope — and 
the talks and walks and drives — upon what had she 
been building? Those first conscious, halt-uncon- 
scious words of his, the rest her presence always 
gave him, the look in his eyes when she came back 
to him — all these were the threads she had been 
weaving into her life’s happiness — her life’s blessed- 
ness. 

The voice of Dr. Yreeland broke in : Gilbert 
Maze has more than given his money, he has given 
himself. He has gone to places people would think, 
do think, that in his lazy luxuriousness he does not 
know the existence of — he has searched for God’s 
materials — that is his way of putting it. We know 
his faults and weaknesses — he is disagreeable 
enough to be very human — he knows that himself 
— his wife, if he ever has one, will be a part of his 
* material,’ and must follow his will and be worked 
like a gold mine.” 

Was he warning her? Did he dare ? 

The dusk and the roses were her shield. This 
man beside her, in her twenties — sweet-and-twen- 
ty ” — had been her ideal — in the world or in a book 


310 


TIIREE-ANB-TWENTY. 


there never had been his like ; but the ideal had 
vanished, or her dream had vanished, or she had 
grown out of both — “ wise-and-thirty ” had no niche 
or pedestal for him ; he was a good man, an agree- 
able companion, a skillful physician — with no rough 
edges like Gilbert Maze — but she would rather go 
alone all around the world, all through life, than go 
with him. How queer life was ! Were any of the 
girls, Elizabeth, Pheann, or Sarah, dear little Sarah, 
in such an exquisite turmoil of pain and bliss ? 

''I wonder if my girls are wishing for me as I 
wish for them,’’ were her bright, commonplace words, 
as she brought herself out of her minute’s reverie. 

I saw them all yesterday — I told you I called. 
— Elizabeth was gracious, Pheann dancing about, 
and Sarah — I think she was sewing.” 


A FLASH-LIGHT. 


311 


XXII. 

A FLASH-LIGHT. 

“We live together years and years 
And leave unsounded still 
Each other’s springs of hopes and fears, 

Each other’s depths of will ; — 

We live together day by day, 

And some chance look or tone 
Lights up with instantaneous ray 
An inner world unknown.’ 

— Houghton. 

There was work to be done at her desk that 
night; she did it half-heartedly; something was 
lost out of it ; something was lost out of the world. 

She looked over her papers for the typewritten 
article that she must have to-night; she was too 
heart-weary, and too brain-weary to write a strong 
editorial ; she had often failed to bring herself up to 
the mark, depending upon the sure work of her asso- 
ciate editor. 

The typewritten article was not there ; she searched 


312 


THBEE-AND-TWENTT, 


drawer and pigeon-hole; it was not anywhere. It 
had failed her at last. For the first time in years; 
how could she but have the habit of depending on it ? 

The old editor had warned her ; how could she be 
confident that each paper was not the last ? She had 
not the pledge of the writer’s word — she had not 
anything but her faith in the help that had been at 
her side so long. 

Had sudden illness — or change of purpose — or 
death — 

Her hand dropped in its nervous searching, she 
fell back in her chair ; how could she be so blind ? 
Gilbert Maze was her associate editor. 

Proof after proof rushed through her mind ; had 
they not always reminded her of smething she had 
felt or knew, but could not catch hold of ? The atmos- 
phere was like the atmosphere she sometimes 
breathed — they were like a dream she had forgotten 
— a face that had shot across her eyes in a crowd — 
a strain of music that would not repeat itself. 

He had done this thing because he must help her, 
because he could not live without helping her. She 
laid her head upon her desk and wept. Daybreak 
found her at her desk. She had written her edi- 
torial. 


SABAH FIELHS STANDPOINT. 


313 


XXIIT. 

SARAH field's STANDPOINT. 

Which way shall we go? ” 

“Follow me/’ 

Something has happened ; something seems to 
have happened to everybody. I think it cannot be 
the accident to Mr. Maze, because he is gaining 
strength every day, and Dr. Vreeland told us last 
night there appeared to be a new life with his new 
strength. He had never seen him so happy before ; 
that restlessness that worried everybody has given 
place to repose, and his face is beautiful. Perhaps 
he has found something that money could not buy, 
or traveling get all around the world. Elizabeth is 
touched, and cares to hear Dr. Vreeland's daily re- 
port, and asked him if she may drive with him to 
Eoseacres before she goes away. 

Going away is what has happened to her. The 
ball of missionary fire has touched her. I knew 


314 


THBEE^ANB-TWENTY, 


there was something deep down in her ; but to think 
it was this. Leaving us all, leaving everything and 
going to China. Not alone, there is a party going, 
a missionary party ; she has been examined by the 
Board, approved, and is making ready for her voy- 
age. 

Father sent her a check for five hundred dollars 
for her outfit ; she calls it her ‘‘ trousseau,” and looks 
as jubilant as though the voyage to China were to 
be her wedding-journey. 

All her life she has been like the rest of us — 
caring just as much for the latest style of wearing 
her hair, and reading all the new books, and talking 
just as much nonsense (perhaps not quite as much) 
as the rest of us girls. The only difference is that 
she has cared more for the best things than we have. 

(But we do care, Pheann and I.) 

She cares, even now, with her heart so full of 
heathen women, to have her traveling dress a be- 
coming shade and a perfect fit ; and the next min- 
ute she talks China with Mary Ashton or Mr. 
Leavenworth with the greatest enthusiasm. 

I know what has happened to her ; but I do not 
know what has happened to cousin Leah. She is 


SABAH FIELHS STANDPOINT. 


315 


just the same, and doing exactly the same doings 
(unless you study her), but she has to try to be just 
the same. She is not as natural as the wild roses 
in Pheann’s field, as she used to be ; everything she 
used to do was as natural as breathing, and now it 
isn’t. All I know is that it isn't. 

But nothing has happened to Dr. Vreeland. He 
is more like himself than ever. 

He does not call to see Aunt Eitchie now, be- 
cause she is still happy at Eoseacres, repaying a 
long debt of gratitude and nursing, she says ; but he 
had a habit of coming, and cannot give it up. He 
comes every Tuesday evening, and always on Sun- 
day ; and, then, he takes cousin Leah to Eoseacres 
every week. And nothing has happened to Mr. 
Leavenworth either, except work. He is as enthu- 
siastic over his church as Elizabeth is over China. 
She asked him how he could stay here in this city 
where there are five churches within five minutes’ 
walk of this house. He said he hoped it was for 
the same reason Paul stayed in one place and did 
not go to another. 

We never grumble now about going to the 
church in Pheann’s yard.” 


316 


THBEE-ANB-TWENTY. 


Cousin Leah loves Mr. Leavenworth; when he 
was a baby he was her darling. He is very grave. 
I almost wish he were not quite so grave. He talks 
quite like a book ; and you like him, if you like 
books ; he will not talk fun, or play games. I like 
him best in the pulpit ; I do not enjoy books as well 
as some girls do. 

He comes out of a book, and takes everything in 
life for granted — that is, everything you have to 
take any trouble about. He seems to think things 
do themselves. Pheann says that is because he is 
so energetic : his things do do themselves. Pheann 
is not a bit afraid of him. She told him that he 
was like the New England minister who was so ab- 
sent-minded that he led his horse to mill and carried 
the sack of corn upon his own back. 

He laughed with fun enough in his eyes, then. 

Nothing has happened to Dr. Vreeland ; he is as 
full of fun as a boy, in spite of the burdens he carries ; 
his days and nights are passed with the sick and the 
dying. He is Love and Sympathy, and the strong- 
est man. Something has happened about the house, 
too. Cousin Leah is Pheann's tenant and pays rent 
to her. She would have it so (not Pheann). But 


SARAH FIELD'S STANDPOINT. 


317 


she says the rent is more than she can afiford after 
Elizabeth and I go away. (Father pays Elizabeth's 
board and mine.) She will go back to New York to 
her old boarding-place if she can tear her mother 
away from Eoseacres. 

Who will be Pheann's next tenant is a problem. 
It will be a pity for strangers to use her beautiful 
things, and there is no room in the old house for 
the furniture ; besides, it would be out of place 
there, and spoil all the quaintness and picturesque- 
ness. 

Pheann is perplexed. The doctor cannot move 
her mother ; the minister cannot move her mother. 

I am forgetting to write beautiful thoughts in a 
beautiful way in my blank book ; in watching other 
people I am forgetting my own self — forgetting 
that I have any life to write about. 

I was never so strong and well in my life. I am 
not growing at all like Sarah Grimke. I am grow- 
ing away from being like her. When Elizabeth is 
gone I shall be homesick for my mother and my 
father. Elizabeth says she shall not be homesick in 
China — she would not know which home to be 
homesick for, she has had so many. 


318 


TEBEE-AND-T WENTY, 


XXIV. 

A STOKY AS GOOD AS A FAIRY STORY. 

God always gives us strength enough and sense enough for 
what he wants us to do. If we either tire ourselves, or puzzle 
ourselves, it is our own fault.” 

— Ruskin. 

“ Father and mother are still abroad; they are 
staying for mother’s health ; they are almost sat- 
isfied enough about me to leave me here forever.” 

‘‘ I should think they might be,” was the warm 
reply ; when I die and leave Pheann I want to 
leave her with Miss Leah.” 

“ And me,” said Pheann’s friend. 

You are very good to stay with me.” 

‘‘You are very good to let me stay.” 

The cheerless spare room had been made very 
pretty and comfortable ; the wheel-chair had been 
pushed to the open window, the window that 
looked up the hill toward Pheann’s house ; in her 


AS GOOD AS A FAIBY STOBY. 


319 


lilac muslin wrapper, with her soft white hair 
framing her face, Pheann’s mother looked sweet 
enough, and enough of a lady, to be anybody’s 
mother — even Pheann’s, thought Sarah Field. 

‘‘ I did not want to go to Roseacres with them 
all to-day,” said Sarah Field, taking her pink wool 
crochet work from her black silk bag, and seating 
herself on a hassock at the feet of Pheann’s 
mother. “My heart is breaking about Elizabeth 
Dare, my beautiful Elizabeth Dare.” 

“ It is a great pity. She is so young and pretty 
and full of life — but I suppose those heathen wo- 
men want her.” 

“Not as much as I do. And all the time she 
has been working up to this. I wish that some- 
body who sent her to Mt. Holyoke, and abroad to 
study, had been in better business just then. I 
know I’m dreadful; but I must pour it out to 
somebody ; and I’m afraid to put it in my Blank 
Book, for I shall have to read it over some day 
when Elizabeth is doing marvelous good there, and 
feel ashamed of myself ; I’m almost ashamed now.” 

“I think it is only natural,” answered Mrs. 
Douglas, sympathetically. “ I feel just that way 


320 


THUEE-AND-TWENTY. 


myself. It would kill me if Pheann should get 
such a crazy idea into her head ; you don’t think 
she will, do you ? ” she asked, pathetically. 

‘‘ I am sure she will not,” said Sarah, between 
laughing and crying. ‘‘Even Mary Ashton will 
not move her.” 

“ I’m afraid. I have not been educated up to mis- 
sions,” acknowledged the woman who had never 
found the monthly missionary meetings in the 
church interesting. 

“ Oh, you will be when I tell you about Mary 
Ashton. She is somebody now in the world — 
somebody now in my little world. I am always so 
glad when people do splendid things. She said 
such a pretty thing (she is always saying pretty 
things) in a letter to Leah. It was this : — 

“‘If a little green apple should say in June, 
“ Can a little green thing like me please the Father 
perfectly ? ” I would say. Yes, The Father does 
not Tvant it to be large and ripe in June. 

“ ‘ And if to-day I am no larger or riper in the 
largeness and ripeness that is my sure inheritance, 
can I please the Father perfectly in the greenness 
and smallness ? Fes, certainly,^ 


AS GOOD AS A FAIRY STORY, 


321 


“ She almost reconciles me to being willing to 
lose Elizabeth. I do wish the person who is send- 
ing Elizabeth, who made her ready, could know 
what a beautiful work it is. And could see her in 
her radiant flesh and blood. I fear her Lord or Lady 
Bountiful thinks of her as an ordinary girl, or per- 
haps an ugly, middle-aged woman, who is not giv- 
ing anything up.” 

‘‘Can’t she find out?” inquired Mrs. Douglas 
with eager interest. 

“ No, never. Mrs. Brown has promised never 
to tell. Elizabeth doesn’t care now. She used to 
be curious and feel grateful. Perhaps it was some 
Board, And a Board has no heart, and no flesh and 
blood, nothing but money. I wish you could have 
seen them drive off to-day, three seats, two horses, 
and a driver ; cousin Leah and Dr. Vreeland, and 
Pheann, and Elizabeth, and our dear new minister, 
Mr. Leavenworth. Mr. Maze sent a special invita- 
tion to him. He wishes them all to see Rose- 
acres.” 

“ I would rather see him than all the Roseacres 
in the world.” 

“ Dr. Vreeland says his hair and beard have grown 


322 


TnBEE--ANB-TWENTY. 


white and his eyes liave a soft, happy shine under 
his black eyebrows. I think even Elizabeth believes 
in him now — that he was not so listless and idle. 
He wanted her to see Roseacres especially, be- 
cause she sails in three weeks. Last week she 
stayed with Mary Ashton, that ball of missionary 
fire.” 

“ Pheann has never told me about Mary Ash- 
ton,” complained Pheann’s mother ; “ she doesn’t 
tell me everything.” 

‘‘ She doesn’t know all about her, perhaps. You 
were ill when Mary was with us, and Pheann saw 
her but once all that week. Now I will tell you; 
it is as true as the truth, and as wonderful to me 
as a fairy tale. She has a sweet face, speaking 
eyes that speak all the more because she is deaf, 
and she is quite lame, very delicate looking, with 
pretty hair, and she talks well — with rather unu- 
sual words I think, I suppose because I do not 
talk well myself. When she was a little girl of 
twelve she became a Christian, in a children’s meet- 
ing in a tent at Ocean Grove. Her father’s sum- 
mer home is at Ocean Grove. But she did not 
think of missionary work, then, nor for years after- 


AS GOOD AS A FAIRY STORY, 


323 


ward. She cared for study ; she is as bright and as 
business-like as cousin Leah herself. She was not 
deaf when a young girl — it came from an illness. 
One time when she was about twenty-six, I think, 
she could not help thinking of these Avords — they 
came and came and kept coming, and she could not 
get rid of them : ‘ Ask of me and I shall give thee 
the heathen for thine inheritance,^ and the uttermost 
parts of the earth for thy possession,"^ 

‘^What did she want that for?” inquired the 
woman who had never been interested in the 
women who had never heard of the Christ she sel- 
fishly believed in and had always kept to herself. 
She had never even spoken to her only child about 
Christ — not in words ; in her simple way she had 
“tried to be good.” 

“ I don’t know hoAv to tell you,” replied the 
story-teller, perplexed. 

“ Elizabeth Dare isn’t going there to support 
herself, is she ? ” 

“No,” said Sarah, resenting the imputation, 
“ she has refused a position with her board and six 
hundred dollars here, at home.” 

“ Go on with your story, then.” 


324 


THREE-AND- T WENTY. 


“ You do not care for it.” 

‘‘Yes, I do. I want to know what thinking of 
that Bible verse so much amounted to.” 

“ More than you can guess. But she did not un- 
derstand then, and after being puzzled about it, 
knelt down and asked if it were really meant for 
her. She did not know what to do with it.” 

“ I shouldn’t think she would ; I have easy ones 
come to me and stay with me.” 

“Because your work is almost done — ” ventured 
Sarah. 

“ How do you know that ? I expect to be well 
and walk yet,” was the retort with sudden energy. 

“ But not to churn and hunt eggs — ” 

“ I may yet.” 

“ I hope you will. Anyway, this was because her 
work was not done, but just ready to begin. After 
a while, and she was doing all she could for missions 
in the meanwhile, one afternoon she read something 
I never read, and, if I have I didn’t care : ‘ There 

ARE FIFTEEN HUNDRED COUNTIES IN CHINA WITHOUT 
A SINGLE MISSIONARY.’ ” 

“ That is a good many, when I have a church at 
my front door, and the minister, this new one, calls 
to see me every week,” was the grateful interrup- 
tion. 


AS GOOD AS A FAIRY STORY. 


325 


“ That day she prayed, her heart ached so for 
China, ‘ 0, Lord., seyid me^ But the way was 
blocked up, for she was deaf to all ordinary speak- 
ing; still, she was looking forward to the day of 
faith when God would open her ears — ” 

“ But he hasn’t,” said the invalid, sharply, who 
would not believe that God healed other ailing 
ones and left her helpless. 

‘‘ No ; he has not. But she expected it. You 
understand she thought her prayer to be sent to 
China could not be answered if she stayed deaf. 
But she could not take ‘ No ’ for an answer. 
She says she wrestled and prevailed, and sweet and 
full came the assurance : — 

‘ H 3 who has led thee thus far 
Will lead thee all the way.’ 

A part of the way was when this thought came to 
her : ‘ If you cannot go yourself, why not support a 
Bible-woman there in your place ? ’ It could not 
be done on her allowance, so she had to ask her 
friends to give two cents a week to add to her 
own giving.” 

“Why, I could give that. But I never did,” 
said the woman, for the first time in her life be- 


326 


TIITIEE-ANB-TWENTY, 


coming interested in the women in China Avho had 
not a church in their front yard. 

‘‘ Blessedly prosperous was that first undertaking, 
and before long the first quarter’s remittance was 
sent. She calls our prayers, prayer-letters, and 
says, if for only two cents we can send a friendly 
letter across the continent, why not pay two to 
send a prayer-letter. But it takes five cents to 
send a letter to China — ” 

Pheann’s mother remembered that she had never 
prayed one prayer for China ; she had prayed only 
for the church in front of her own house. 

I told her I would send my prayer-letter to 
China every week, but I am ashamed because that 
is so small a thing to do. She quotes such pretty 
hymns about 

‘ — those across the sea 
Who have never heard 
One tender word 
Of the Lamb of Calvary.’ ” 

‘‘ It is pretty. But I never thought hymns 
meant much beside something to sing in church.” 

“ Soon after sending the first quarter’s money 
for the Bible-woman to China she began to read 
about India.” 


AS GOOD AS A FAIBY STOBY, 


32T 


“ I should think China was enough for one girl 
to think of.” 

All the world isn’t too much when your heart 
is on fire. She had thought of India as pretty well 
supplied with missionaries, but she discovered — 
it had the effect of a discovery on her — that one 
hundred and forty millions of women in India and 
Malaysia had never heard that Clirist had lived 
and died on earth for them ; she had to go to work 
to send a Bible-woman to India — or support one 
already there, I suppose, for it takes only fifty or 
sixty dollars. She decided that she must form a 
society to support a deaconess in China — but that 
would not be sufficient ; she must go to work.” 

“ How could she go to work ? She was deaf.” 

‘‘ A ball of fire finds its way. She did. She 
bought large sheets of paper at the printing-house 
and cut them into small sheets and envelopes for 
sale. She made books of this kind of paper, and 
pasted birds on, and stars, and made scrap-books 
to sell, and raised the necessary fifty dollars. 

‘‘ While she was thinking hard, and praying hard, 
and working hard for the third fifty — are you 
interested in all this ? ” with a quick glance up 


328 


THREE^ANB-TWENTT, 


from her work to see if the pale face were growing 
weary. 

“ I like anything that is worh^'" was the encour- 
agement with considerable energy. I get so tired 
of not working.” 

“My story is all work, you see. About this 
time there came a letter from a lady who had 
chanced to see some of her rough, home-made 
booklets and knew the work was for missions; she 
thought she could help her to new ideas ; one of 
them was to have poems, and Bible verses printed 
on slips of ribbon, afterward to be fringed : all 
colors, and the loveliest things she could find to 
print on them. I have bought them by the dozen 
to send away in letters, and for Christmas, and 
birthdays, and every day and Sunday. She sells 
leaflets and cards, and booklets and banners. She 
prayed, I think she prayed as hard as she worked — ” 

“ The old woman, the angel from Heaven, only 
prayed,” interrupted the listener, growing more in- 
terested every moment. 

“ She prayed that she might be used as wisely, 
as lovingly, as completely, as mightily for the hea- 
then women as she could be if she were in their 


AS GOOD AS A FAIRY STORY, 


329 


homes and schools. You can’t imagine all the ways 
she has of finding people to help her. She takes 
names and addresses from donation lists in maga- 
zines and papers, and writes to strangers enclosing 
samples and a leaflet that has been published about 
her work. It is almost ten years since she began 
her work. When I saw her in her father’s pretty 
house at Ocean Grove she took me up-stairs and 
showed me boxes and boxes of the beautiful ribbon 
things. She keeps no money for herself, and gives 
all her time and thought and prayer and strength 
(her small, and yet great strength) to this most ab- 
sorbing, fiery work. 

‘‘Two years ago she said: ‘What shall I ask for 
the coming year?’ And she ‘asked’ for one 
thousand dollars. When the twelve months were 
ended she had sent for Bible-women and deacon- 
esses one thousand and thirty-jive dollar 

“ My deary me ! ” exclaimed the astonished voice ; 
“I never heard the like. Are you sure? ” 

“ As sure as I want to be,” laughed Sarah Field. 
“ And now she has pledged herself for the support 
of another girl to be sent to China — and that girl 
is my beautiful Elizabeth Dare.” 


330 


THREE-ANB-TWENTY, 


“Well, I never,’’ was the slow ejaculation. 

“Isn’t it wonderful and splendid? If only it 
would not take Elizabeth away from me. I rejoice 
in everything but that. But I suppose every time 
somebody’s Elizabeth has to go.” 

“ Pheann never shall. Don’t let Pheann go 
near her,” pleaded Pheann’s mother, as if there 
wexe missionary contagion in Mary Ashton’s touch. 

“ Pheann never will ; don’t be afraid. Elizabeth 
has no mother — she has nobody real near but Mrs. 
Brown and my family. Her father has never been 
a real father.” 

“ She is deaf still, that Mary Ashton ? ” 

“ Oh, you are thinking about that. She was 
partly healed in answer to prayer, and she thought 
she could go to China, but the deafness returned. 
One time when she was praying with all her might 
to go, a friend came to stay all night, and slie went 
into another room to find an extra quilt to put on 
the bed. Her father’s business was in the house, 
and in this part of it was something like an eleva- 
tor — the hatchway had been left open, she fell 
through, and her left thigh was fractured. That 
was the answer to her prayer to go to China, When 


AS GOOD AS A FAIRY STORY. 


331 


her pastor was praying at her bedside for her to be 
made well, and said : ‘ Her family needs her, the 
church needs her,’ her poor heart said : ‘ And 
Cliina^ She grieved and wept, and was so disap- 
pointed that she could not go to Nanking, China ; 
and now she sends a deaconess there to a Memo- 
rial Hospital, the very spot she wished to be.” 

‘‘ That is too much for me,” was the long- 
breathed exclamation. ‘‘ Is she satisfied to stay at 
home now? ” 

As glad and happy and satisfied as she knows 
how to be. She has decided that she has a busi- 
ness talent for making money, Avhich the Lord 
chooses to use for China rather than any talent for 
teaching she may have. But she loves the stud}^ 
of language, and it was pathetic to hear her say : 

‘ And I cannot even hear my own.’ ” 

I should think such energy could work won- 
ders,” replied the woman who had made an idol of 
work all her life. Then she remembered the old 
woman who prayed, and was rebuked. 

This old woman who prayed and could not work 
was a comfort to her in every one of her laid-aside 
days, and especially at night, when the pain in her 


332 


TIIBEE-AND-T WENTY, 


side and back kept her from sleep. She was sure 
Gilbert Maze cared about the old woman, too, for 
he looked so bright, when, one morning, after one 
of her hard nights, she told the story through to 
him. The next week he brought her a magazine 
into which it had been copied. The magazine was 
on the small table beside the wheel-chair, with her 
knitting and her Bible. 

“ Pheann and I hope to sell ever so many of her 
ribbons.” 

But Pheann shan’t go. Keep Mary Ashton 
away from her.” 

“ Am I not almost as lovely as Pheann,” drop- 
ping a kiss on the white head. 

The answer was a look, and Sarah Field laughed. 
She often told Pheann that she did not half appre- 
ciate how her mother loved her. 

“Your story began with Ask of mef said Mrs. 
Douglas, as Sarah tucked the napkin under her 
chin at dinner time ; “ I can remember that part of 
it.” 

“ So it did. You have given the finishing touch 
to my story.” 


HOMESICK. 


333 


XXV. 

HOMESICK. 

“ There are natures in which, if they love us, we are conscious 
of having a sort of baptism and consecration. They bind us 
over to rectitude and purity by their pure belief about us.” 

— George Eliot. 

You and I may be those truest true lovers 

Who are nearest to God when nearest to each other.” 

That afternoon, while Pheann's mother slept, her 
nurse put herself into the wheel-chair, and with her 
work in her hand dreamed about herself as its daily 
occupant, and wondered what such a hidden-away 
life would mean to her. 

Going to China would be terrible enough, but to 
be an invalid would be more terrible than going to 
China, — more than leaving her father and mother 
and going to China. 

Still, nothing could be so terrible as leaving her 
father and mother. She would not leave her father 
and mother for anybody. 


334 


THBEE-AND-TWENTY. 


It was a warm afternoon, the bees buzzed outside 
the window ; it was warm and lonesome, so lonesome 
with Pheann away, and Elizabeth going so far away, 
and father and mother — 

The door was wide open a step in the little entry, 
a figure that filled the doorway; Dr. Vreeland 
smiled at the picture in the wheel-chair, all light 
hair, tinted cheeks, and blue muslin. But the blue 
eyes were filled with homesick tears. 

'' What is it, dear ? ” he asked, putting his arms 
about her. '‘Sarah Field, little girl, don't you know 
I love you ? " 

"No-o," sobbed Sarah Field, too frightened to be 
glad. 

"Will you believe it if I tell you so ?” 

" I always believe you.” 

" And what shall I believe if you tell me so ? ” 

" I — don’t know,” she answered shyly ; " I thought 
it was — somebody else.” 

"What somebody else? What somebody else 
could it be ? ” 

It could be, but it was not — cousin Leah. 

"If you don’t know, then — it wasn’t.” 

" I should hope not. I have thought of no one 


HOMESICK. 


335 


else in all the world since I saw you in New York 
at Miss Leah’s. You are so true and dear and lov- 
ing, how could I think of any one else ? ” 

But you are so — ” 

“ So what ? " 

His face clouded ; was he so old, so — 

“ You are so — splendid,” she answered with a 
laugh, springing out of the chair and away from 
him. 

That night Sarah Field wrote in her Blank Book, 
and it was the last sentences she wrote in it for 
years, for after that life was so full that she had no 
time to write it down. 

That night she wrote : '' It has come to me — no, 
it has been given to me ; it has been coming all the 
time when I did not know it, or think anything 
about it. It came. It grew. God made it. I was 
only trying to be good and lovely and forget about 
myself, and all that time somebody, somebody 
splendid was thinking about me and loving me. 
Think of it, loving me. And he doesn’t care that I 
used to be the three dreadful things, because I am 
not any of them now — that is, not a spoiled child, 
and I never was a real ‘ beauty.’ (Only I think he 


336 


THBEE-AND-TWENTY. 


likes to look at me.) I haven’t told cousin Leah, or 
Pheann ; I do not know how to tell it. Dr. Vreeland 
and I will write to father and mother by the same 
mail — and we are not to tell anybody until father 
and mother are willing for it to be announced ; father 
knows him and said once he was a ‘ fine fellow.’ I 
have never written about him, because I always 
thought it was cousin Leah. He says he determined 
not to court me, not to urge me into loving him, or 
to allure, or entice me into it ; but just to let it grow 
of itself ; and he watched, and knew — what did he 
know ? He did not tell me. I told myself again, 
and again, and ever so many times more, that it was 
cousin Leah. I did not hope for it, or pray once 
about it, except : Thy will he done. I know I shall 
not write any more in this book ; I am too happy. 

My story is not like Mary Ashton’s, working so 
untiringly and so successfully for the poor heathen 
women ; not like my beautiful Elizabeth Dare’s — 
giving her own self ; not like Pheann’s, giving herself 
to her mother, or cousin Leah’s, who is always 
killing two birds with one stone, and starting off in 
several directions at once; it is only poor, little 
Sarah Field’s story — who never did well at school. 


HOMESICK. 337 

who never succeeded when she tried to be good, and 
will never be anything in the world, but daughter 
to father and mother, and a good man’s wife. 

“ But, oh, dear, I like it so, and am so happy. God 
bless all the world to-night.” 




338 


TUBEE-AND-TWENTY. 


XXVI. 

MAKY O’KANE. 

“ The dews of blessing heaviest fall 
Where care falls too.” 

— Jean Ingelow. 

Mother/’ said Pheann. 

The wheel-chair was in the kitchen ; Mrs. Doug- 
las had insisted upon watching the Saturday morn- 
ing’s work ; Mary O’Kane, as frowsy and loud talk- 
ing as ever, was molding bread that would have 
taken the prize among many competitors; Pheann 
expected to make the Sunday rice pudding. 

Well,” said Pheann’s mother, “how many times 
have you washed that rice ? You know it must be 
washed clean'' 

“ Mother, you tell me that every Saturday.” 

“ It’s true every Saturday.” 

“But some time I shall remember without any 
more telling. But I want to tell you something. 


MAEY O^KANE, 


339 


My tenant is going to leave. Miss Leah has given 
me notice.” 

“ Doesn’t she like the house ? ” 

Better than ever. But her household is break- 
ing up.” 

It isn’t breaking her home up ? ” 

‘‘ Yes, it is. She cannot afford to pay for such 
style, she says. After her month’s vacation at 
Eoseacres, she is going back to New York to the 
same pleasant rooms she had when cousin Gilbert 
allured her out here.” 

‘‘ And then you’ll see what a tenant you will get,” 
warned Mary O’Kane, her hair frowsier than ever, 
and her tones louder ; children to spill things on 
the carpet, and to break that beautiful china, and 
that Nook, as you call it, will be turned into a den 
of thieves, or something worse, and that beautiful 
glass window broken, and all the silver spoons lost, 
and the pictures pulled down, and the stationary 
tubs — how I’d like to wash in them tubs, and get 
one dinner in that kitchen.” 

“But we can bring the things here,” said Mrs. 
Douglas, eagerly, “ and stow them away.” 

“Yes, the kitchen, and the tubs, and all those 


340 


THREE- A ND-TWENTY. 


things in your room that Miss Leah's mother has 
had. It has almost torn my hair out by the roots 
to think of her in your chamber — and that Irish 
girl washing in them tubs. And winter coming 
and that whole house warm and we shivering and 
freezing if a fire goes out, and rain coming in the 
roof, and you sleeping over a cellar with potatoes in 
it, and your spine so sore I can’t rub it half the 
time. But I don't care for that, it is for them 
things getting spoiled and not fit for Miss Pheann 
to use after you are dead and gone." 

Mary O'Kane gave her loaf a slap with an ener- 
getic palm. 

“You shall not say such things!” Mrs. Douglas 
screamed, leaning forward to pull Pheann’s dress. 
“ Pheann, let Mary finish that pudding, and you go 
and tell Miss Leah that it is your house, and your 
things, and we are going to move straight into it the 
day she moves out." 

And Mary O’Kane had done it. She had done 
what Gilbert Maze failed to do, and Pheann, and the 
minister and the doctor. 


A CABLEGRAM AND A SHADOW. 341 


XXVII. 

A CABLEGRAM AND A SHADOW. 

*^Thou crownest the year with thy goodness/’ 

PiiEANN stood in the narrow hall, exactly where 
she stood that day when she heard Sarah Field's 
voice talking to her mother. 

Such a year since, — no, it was not a year, that 
was November, to-day was July; it was not a year 
since ; but the months had been months of care and 
blessing, they seemed years of care and blessing. 

Within her mother’s room was the same voice, 
Sarah Field’s voice talking to her mother. 

A cablegram,” repeated her mother’s voice, 
what kind of a gram is that ? ” 

Pheann rushed into the room ; she was not slow 
and graceful like Sarah ; she rushed. 

“ Sarah, what has happened ? ” she demanded. 

“ Nothing, but a cablegram from father,” said 
Sarah, excitedly ; ‘‘ they are on the way home. My 
letter brought them.” 


342 


THE EE- A NB- T WEN T F. 


Your letter ! What was in it ? 

News/' said Sarah, demurely, stooping over the 
wheel-chair to arrange a fold in the lilac wrapper. 

What news ? ” with a pretty air of demand. 

You will know some time — when they come — 
it isn't anything — I mean it is a great deal — ” 
stammered Sarah, giving the lilac fold a twitch. 

'‘Sarah," aggrieved and vehement, "did I ever 
keep a secret from you ? " 

"Yes. You did. You kept this house a secret 
from me." 

" But you know it now." 

" So will you know it when father and mother are 
willing." 

" Are they bringing home something ? " 

" No ; they are coming home to get something." 

" You provoking thing. I haven't a secret in the 
world from you." 

" I hope you will have this kind of a one — ” 

" I can't surmise — I can't suspect — Sarah ! You 
are not engaged ? ” 

" I am engaged — not to tell you this." 

"You don't care for me — you have let something 
come between us.” 


A CABLEGRAM AND A SHADOW. 343 


'‘It never, never, never shall,*' protested Sarah. 

"It does now, this minute. You know something 
I do not.” 

" Perhaps you know something I do not.” 

" So I do,” laughed Pheann, " and I was forgetting 
that I had a secret. It is my Cross of the Legion of 
Honor." 

" Mine is not a cross," said Sarah ; " oh, dear^ how 
I do want to tell you.” 

" Are you forbidden ? " 

" We promised each other — " Sarah stopped in 
dire confusion. 

" Now, I know,'' said Pheann, seizing Sarah about 
the waist and whirling her about the room, " and I 
know who it is. Have you been thinking I hadn't 
eyes ?” 

"And that I hadn't ears?'' remarked Pheann’s 
mother. "I was on the bed, but I wasn’t asleep." 

" Oh, dear ! ” Sarah groaned, in real fright, " have I 
broken my promise and told ? " 

" Oh, no ; we only saw and heard,” Pheann laughed 
in high glee. 

"I guess I can keep a secret," said the pleased 
voice in the wheel-chair. " I told him I knew, and 
he said I mustn't tell." 


344 


thuee-and-twenty. 


This telegram is the only answer to my letter,” 
Sarah ran on, perplexed. I know it means good 
news, but it is very startling. They caught a 
steamer without waiting to pack ; mother’s maid will 
come later with the trunks, I suppose — they are 
afraid I will be kidnapped. I am going home to 
open the house ; the cook is the only one in the 
house. I wish you could go with me, Pheann.” 

'' Take Elizabeth.” 

'' Oh, Elizabeth is everywhere — seeing Sunday 
schools and missionary circles and staying with 
Mary Ashton. I cannot get her. But Cook and I 
are old friends. I am so glad, I can hardly bear it.” 

Sarah would have burst into tears if Pheann had 
not whisked her about the room, singing ‘‘Home, 
Sweet Home ” as if it were a lively jig. 

“ You will not be here to help us move,” bemoaned 
Pheann’s mother. 

“ As if we had anything to move,” said Pheann. 

“I shall take my things,'' replied her mother, 
severely. 

“ All the thing I want is you,” said Pheann, “ and 
Harry will soon push you up there.” 

“ And Mary O’Kane.” 


A CABLEGBAM AND A SHADOW. 345 


Oh, yes, Mary O’Kane. She says she will keep 
her hair smooth (because that house is style) even if 
it takes a bottle of vaseline a week.” 

The last day of July hurried Sarah Field home, 
and it carried Elizabeth Dare and the missionary 
party away to the sea. The afternoon took Leah 
Eitchie to New York for a talk with Mrs. Brown. 

So your vacation has begun,” was Mrs. Brown’s 
greeting. I wish you would take me to Eoseacres.” 

I wish I could,'' said Leah, earnestly. It is my 
ideal of a country home. Mother thrives like the 
roses. I suspect she would like to be as much of a 
fixture there as the roses. But, oh, dear, I am al- 
most sorry I promised to go.” 

Wise Mrs. Brown asked no questions. 

''Something has fallen between us — a shadow. 
It never shifts, it is always there.” 

" Shadows do not amount to much.” 

" But it takes a substance to make a shadow.” 

" It takes light, too. You cannot see a shadow in 
the dark.” 

" I feel this in the dark and everywhere.” 

"It must be a tangible kind of a shadow to be 
felt" 


346 


THBEE-AND-TWENTY. 


Leah pulled off her gloves. 

'' I cannot stay ; I am only taking off my gloves 
to relieve myself. Mrs. Brown, do you know what 
has done this ? ” 

What has brought the shadow between you, you 
mean ? ” 

“Yes, I mean that. We were almost the — he 
flung the door wide open, and I know I stood on the 
threshold ; suddenly he shut it in my face.” 

“In the face of Philip Vreeland’s betrothed wife,” . 
said Mrs. Brown, impressively. 

“Who is she?” Leah asked, innocently. “If she 
exists, what has she to do with it ? ” 

“Well, well,” laughed Mrs. Brown, “don’t bring 
me into a live, romantic love story. I thought you 
had come to tell me that you were engaged to my 
Philip.” 

Leah was silent ; the room grew too dark for her 
to distinguish the face of her friend. 

“ Do explain,” laughed Mrs. Brown in her comfort- 
able voice. “I know there are stories in real life; 

I lived through one myself, and wish I could write 
it up for girls.” 

“ I know nothing to explain,” said Leah, as Mrs. 


A CABLEGBAM AND A SHADOW. 347 


Brown’s face came clearly before her eyes ; some- 
thing must have happened while I was asleep.” 

''Then I will tell you. Gilbert stayed with me 
all day yesterday. How fine he has grown. How 
fine he always was, though. I told him I was tired 
of seeing him around not married, and he said in 
that ridiculous way of his that he was living to 
prove to himself that he could be something of a 
man without the influence of a wife, and quoted: — 
‘ Who marries a fish, a fish will be ; 

Who marries a frog, a frog is he.' 

He said that was a proverb among the Karens.” 

Leah listened impatiently, with burning cheeks. 

" And then I asked him to stop his nonsense and 
tell me what was the matter with him. And he 
said, with a look in his eyes that had nothing to do 
with nonsense, that the only woman he had ever 
wished to marry was engaged to his bosom-friend — 
Philip had told him he was engaged — and he had 
broken away from him and asked no more.” 

"I don’t understand,” was all Leah’s lips could 
frame. 

" I am glad you don’t. I love Philip, but I love 
Gilbert, too. What is the matter with the boy that 


348 


THREE- A ND- T WENT Y, 


he hasn’t come to tell me ? What is the matter with 
all this generation ? Why can’t you be straight-for- 
ward ? Why can’t you know your own mind ? The 
trouble is, girls have too much minds to know now- 
a-days — or too many. When I was a girl, I knew'' 

“ I did not,” said Leah. '' If I had known what I 
know now — at twenty-three, how different his life 
would have been.” 

And your own ? ” 

“ Oh, my life. I don’t care about mine. I have 
enjoyed my work and taken care of mother.” 

‘"And he is neither a fish, nor a frog,” said Mrs. 
Brown, showing her dimples. 

“ I don’t see why I have been let to be a sorrow 
and burden and hindrance to such a man.” 

“ Take care, take care ; don’t question.” 

''I question my blindness and conceit and self- 
sufficiency, and vainglorious knowledge and idiotic 
stupidity. I should think he would despise me. I 
am glad he never sunk to my level.” 

“ But he would like to have a chance — now he 
would be only too glad to sink.” 

*'He is coming to drive me to Eoseacres to- 
morrow.” 




A CABLBGRAJf AND A SHADOW, 349 


And you have given up your house ? ” 

'' Pheann’s House. Pheann and her mother take 
dinner, their first dinner, in it to-morrow — we with 
them — not they with us.” 

Leah put on her gloves, then she arose and kissed 
her old friend. 

“ I am glad you told me about the frog,*’ she said. 

But what about Philip ? ” 

“ That you must ask him.” 

And will you take care of the shadow ? ” 

Oh, shadows take care of themselves — like 
ghosts.” 

Leah, don’t be proud.” 

“ I am proud.” 

He is prouder ; he was hurt once.” 

“ I am hurt now,” said Leah. 

Was the hurt good for her ? Had something been 
good for her all these long years ? she pondered on 
the way home on the elevated road, on the ferry boat, 
in the train, and in the electric car. How up-to-date 
the world was, and how old the heartaches. 

Then she remembered that the children in the 
Wilderness had prayed, and the granted prayer had 
been to their hurt — in the Land afterward, the 


350 


TUliEE^AND-TWENTY. 


very same thing was allowed them, full permission 
to eat freely ; yet in the Wilderness it was not a 
blessing — nothing was a blessing (no matter how 
good in itself) that was given before God’s full tim« 
had come. 


wo VEN THEE ADS. 


351 


XXVIII. 

WOVEN- THREADS. 

Giftless we come to Him who all things gives, 

And live because He lives.” 

— Whittier. 

“ There are no disappointments, it has been said, to 
those whose wills are bound up in the will of God.” 

Pheann sat at the head of the table in her own 
house ; she hardly understood now how it happened 
that it was her own house. 

"'If you look out the window you can see my 
house,’’ her mother remarked to Mr. Leavenworth at 
the table. 

After that day the old house was always called 
by the initiated, My House.” 

Pheann’s House and My House were household 
words at Roseacres. 

Pheann had asked Leah if it would not be 
“lovely” to ask Mr. Leavenworth to dinner; she 
told Gilbert Maze that she wanted the minister to 
“ dedicate ” her house. 


352 


TEBEE-ANB-TWENTY. 


If the minister had known her desire he could 
not have asked a more appropriate blessing over 
Mary O’Kane’s delicious dinner than in the words 
the mistress of the dedicated house never forgot. 

‘'We pray thee, Lord, to bless this house, and 
grant that good may be done in it in the name of 
the Lord Jesus.” 

After dinner Gilbert was shown the “ surprise.” 

The room opening out of the parlor had been fur- 
nished as an old-time bedroom; even the portiere 
was a white and blue cotton counterpane that had 
been among the half-century-ago wedding presents. 

“ Mother’s room,” said Pheann, delightedly. “ And 
the window overlooks My House. The windows in 
my room look down to the wild-rose hedge.” 

That night Pheann’s mother slept in her old-time 
bedroom; in the morning she said she had never 
had such a night’s rest in her life. 

Harry, the man who had grown up from boyhood 
in the old house, had rented the house and land ; his 
mother had come to be his housekeeper. 

Before two weeks of Leah’s vacation at Eoseacres 
were over a letter came from Sarah Field, as shy 
and sweet as the Simpleton herself, announcing her 
engagement to Philip Vreeland. 


WOVEN THREADS. 


353 


Leah took it to Gilbert, who was writing an edi- 
torial for The Homemaker in the Eoot House. 

‘‘ It ought to be a good letter,” he said ; that en- 
gagement cost me enough.” 

“ Is it all paid for ? ” she asked, mischievously. 

“1^0 — I shall continually hold it over your head 
to make you behave.” 

The shadow was gone. Neither of them could 
tell how it vanished. Gilbert declared he had never 
asked her to become his wife. 

When she asked him why he had given away so 
many thousands, he replied; ^'I was afraid you 
would want to marry me for my money some day.” 

Leah insisted upon keeping her position on The 
Homemaker. “ You keep up your work, why should 
I not keep up mine ? It will keep me from becom- 
ing tired of you.” 

“ It will be easy work for you, if you expect me to 
keep on being the typewriter girl.” 

Leah would have chosen to be married at Eose- 
acres, but Pheann wrote that her mother’s heart 
would break if cousin Gilbert did not come to 
Pheann’s House to be married. 

She said she wanted to ‘‘ stand up ” with him. 


354 


THREE- AN D-T WEN TY. 


It was a small wedding, so small that the bridal 
party gathered in the Nook. Mrs. Brown and her 
husband, Dr. Nash, Sarah Field and Philip Vreeland, 
Pheann and her mother, the bride and groom, and 
Leah’s mother. And Leah’s little sweetheart, Eobert 
Leavenworth, married her. 

Chase sent congratulations : it was the busy season 
on his big farm, and he could not take time for the 
journey. 

The wedding journey was a trip on the Portland 
steamer. The pleasantest part of it was the walk 
from grandmother’s house on the edge of the town 
to the white house with the gable to the road, where 
the wood-house was still piled with wood. 

Gilbert, I am afraid I was a very naughty child.” 

'‘No matter. I have my way at last,” he said. 


HAVE YOU READ 


Thege DeligpM Volngie^ 

BY 

JENNIE M. DRINKWATER? 


SEE WHAT IS SAID OF THEM. 

They are extremely well written, free from every taint of sensa- 
tional trickery, yet so intensely interesting that they draw the reader 
gently on from page to page with the attraction of earnestness, sim- 
plicity and purity. 

While evincing qualities of originality and literary taste, and offer- 
ing much to suggest genius, the author of this pleasing and thor- 
oughly good fiction — is entitled to high praise for especial cleverness 
in writing books which at once interest and at the same time instill 
into the heart a fine sense of life’s noblest concerns. Young ladies 
especially should read them. — Boston Critic. 

Miss Drinkwater introduces the reader to agreeable people, provides 
an atmosphere which is tonic and healthful, and enlists interest in 
every page. — Sunday-School Times. 

It is one of the charms of Miss Drinkwater’s stories, their natur- 
alness and homelikeness. — Methodist Protestant. 



THEY ARE AS FOLLOWS: 


Tessa Wadsworth’s Discipline . . . . ' . . . . $1.25 

Rue’s Helps. 12mo 1.25 

Electa. 12mo 1.25 

Fifteen ; or, Lydia’s Happenings 1.25 

Bek’s First Corner. 12mo . 1.25 

Miss Prudence. 12mo 1.25 

The Story of Hannah. 12mo 1.25 

That Quisset House. 12mo . . . . . . . 1.25 

Isobel’s Between Times. 12mo . 1.25 

Rizpah’s Heritage. 12mo 1.25 

From Flax to Linen. 12mo 1.25 

Fourfold. 12mo 1-25 

Marigold. 12mo 1-25 

Other Folk 1-25 

Second Best. 12mo 1*25 

Set Free 1-25 


My Lady 1*25 

Dorethy’s Island 1*25 


BRADLEY & WOODRUFF, Publishers, 

BOSTON. 








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